Seacat; Mariatta; Choli, Choli, Choli

One grackle does not a spring make. But it's a start.

One grackle, squeezing out a rusty wheeze in a low tree by Spy Pond reminded me that I hadn't been looking for any returning blackbirds, normally a rite of March. Been busy writing passages for high school students. Too busy to explore passages, like winter to spring.

So grackles came looking for me. A few days ago, a tree full of them in a neighbor's backyard. Studding the branches like the fruit of a blackbird tree. Making a plangent din of wheezes and skirls and desultory clacks. Bearing a message: this tree full of grackles is brought to you by / brings you: spring.

March doesn't advertise, but if it did, it would probably be like one of those business cards you find in your mail from a local contractor: Grackle Construction — snow removed — crocuses coaxed — songbirds encouraged.

Cardinals, of course, began whistling their ads in February, but they have their own business, kind of unguarded espionage.

I received an ad, kind of, in a dream. Woke up about a week ago with a chant fading in my mind's ear, and I wrote it down. The voice or voices were chanting:

Seacat; 
Mariatta; 
Choli, choli, choli, choli....

Though I only came away with one iteration, I had a sense of repetition. Something that Polynesian catamaran sailors might intone as they voyage from island to island. And/or something southwestern, partaking of the desert.

Seacat; 

Mariatta; 

Choli, choli, choli, choli....

I assigned it a meaning. Or rather, a thought surfaced alongside it and I bound the two together. "You are more powerful than you know."

To spring awakenings.