“Night time, when phrases fade and issues come alive,” Little Prince writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote in his love letter to the nighttimes, composed whereas flying alone over the Sahara Desert.
No aliveness animates the nocturne with extra grandeur than the migration of birds. Each spring and fall, within the starlit hall between the timber and the clouds, flocks of tens of millions soar over darkish deserts and oceans, cities and continents — feathered pilgrims of function and resilience, ruled by senses we don’t have, guided by voices we’re solely simply starting to listen to.
Throughout these immense distances, usually navigating by astronomy, birds keep on target and keep collectively by a sort of choral communication, talking to one another in unusual and wondrous sounds — some solely fractions of a second lengthy, all totally completely different from their daytime calls and songs.
And all of it — this secret language of the evening, this miracle of sentience and synchrony, this fiesta of homecoming — whereas we sleep, whereas we dream of flying.
Poet Hannah Fries conjures up the majesty and thriller of evening migration in a surprising poem, set to music by composer Oliver Caplan and channeled within the human voices of the New Hampshire Grasp Chorale.
NIGHT MIGRATIONS
by Hannah FriesWe sleep,
stumbling
by way of doorless desires,
whereas over our rooftops
sky shivers with wings —
warblers, cuckoos,
herons and sparrows —
waves rising
on evening’s cool breath.We sleep
as they observe the celebrities
(hummingbird and wren)
excessive over shadowed earth,
timber clinging to rock,
cities curled in grief.
We shut our home windows,
bury our faces —we sleep
they usually communicate:
buzz and whistle,
secret names
by way of air
tying every to every.We sleep
as they fly
(think about being lifted)
by moon and magnet,
over undulating sea
towards a spot
(bear in mind)
that echoes
in hallowed clearings,
in hollowed bones,
the track that pulls them
house.
Couple with Richard Powers on the majestic migration of sandhill cranes, then revisit Emily Dickinson’s soulful ode to ecology set to track.
