Notes of a Robin's Song

This morning I was awoken by the calling of a robin. At first, it sang me a brief chirrup in the melody of a greeting. I moved towards the windows and listened. It twirled and jumped a leap from a branch of the orange tree in my garden into the potted peace lilies on my windowsill. Then it sang once more, now sonorous and tender, as if serenading a message addressed personally to my name. The song filled the air around me with a melody of its own, a fluttering of a lyric or a songlike thing, yearning to be heard. But before my mouth — agape with understanding — could utter a syllable or a fragment of a word, the robin had turned to flee, clapping its grey wings into the warm morning light. It gifted me with an offering, a verse waiting to be unearthed, the draft of a robin song.

My heart had been in wait of a bird song for a while. A faint but restless yearning that hid between the blank pages of notebooks and in the quietness of an empty room. It longed for a bird song to substitute the silence with an honest expression of emotion, a spontaneous outpouring of joy and desire. The trouble with songs that the heart sings is that they are complex and intricate melodies, not like bird songs at all. Notes twirl around themselves and words dart away when the heart looks for them most. It is a delicate balance, this act of creation; a dance between emotion and sound. It requires vulnerability and a willingness to lay bare the soul to invite in whoever may wish to listen.

My tethered heart often dreamt of joining the robins in their wild songs, singing of the wonders and lightness of the world. But my words are not suited for the poetry of feathered things. So I stood by the windows, and I listened, and my mind wandered to places where my words might be carried on the wings of a song. I thought about the worth of a song that never soars. I asked myself: Would a robin, if unable to fly, still trill its melodies, cherishing life with all its vigor and discovering ways to take flight within? And this morning I believe it. I believe the heart often crafts songs that exist only as a testament to its desires; the whisper of a wish made, in secrecy, to itself.

This morning, I sit at my writing desk and honour the draft of a robin song. Not by attempting to write something magnificent, but by simply attempting to write at all. My heart writes a song of its spirit, and its simplicity brings me joy. And even if only for a brief moment, it allows me to feel as light as a feathered being.