Last week I was in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina - road-tripping with my oldest daughter through the blossoming south of my youth. We stopped by the wonderful Jill McCorkle’s house, and sat for a while on her front porch. Before we left, she showed us a nest of house finches, which reminded me of a lyric essay I wrote for the Vermont Almanack a few years ago. I was exhausted by motherhood and my heart was aching. Related - my heart is always aching.
We have house finches every year - perhaps descended from the same line. Today the male is sitting on the power line, keeping watch, singing.
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The House Finch
It was six thirty AM, a brutally cold spring morning in Vermont. Twenty degrees. I crept downstairs for a cup of coffee, then snuck into the mudroom, where I could look at the house finch in her nest through a window.
I wanted to know - how did she do it? Where did she find the reserves to sit for hours in the unflinching cold, bringing her young to life?
Him. Her partner. He was indefatigable, ardent, devoted, full of noise – always perched on the low-slung power line close to the house, shitting on the cars, warning us, encouraging her with his tireless song. He sang at the dogs, the escaped cat, the cars, the crows, the sun, the very air she breathed.
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Three clutches of eggs, that year. How were they not exhausted?
We kept the dogs inside when each of their broods fledged - fat, dumpling-sized chicks flinging themselves out of the nest onto the side porch, flopping in the grass, unaware, vulnerable, unformed.
He brought food. He hovered. He cheered his children on, warned them. There were laments and exaltations.
One day He rose to confront the contractor who had driven up the driveway too fast in a silver pickup. He met the windshield and fell to the pavement, feathers and honor intact.
The contractor failed to notice the small body beside the truck, moving on about his work, as humans do.
I walked to His body, picking it up in my hand. I smoothed the red feathers on His head, admired His beatific expression. I turned so that the contractor would not see me cry. I am still ashamed at the depth of my feeling.
Questions: Do you love your neighbors? Do you admire hard work? Do you know real devotion when you see it?
I buried Him at the end of a mossy path, and think of His devotion as I pass. Years now, it is a practice built into my morning walk, a longing my heart can’t manage to bring to my lips. I’m not sure you would understand, if devotion is not something you have longed for yourself.
Living in the midst of the packed city of Pittsburgh, I am acutely aware of my "neighbors"--both human and the cardinals, robins, common grackles, finches--even a pair of red-tailed hawks--in my neighorhood. I wholeheartedly understand your tears at the death of this finch, and I appreciate you capitalizing His pronouns. Thank you for such a beautiful lyric. I will share this with my Environmental Literature class today in school. And I will add more seed to the feeders in my garden when I go home. (PS: I have had a robin (or two different robins) nesting on my porch the past two years; it feels like a gift to get to witness the process and see the fledglings take their first flight.) Sharon
I love this, Megan. I needn't imagine you crying when confronted by his death; tears came to my own eyes when I read your description of it. I admire devotion perhaps above all other qualities, because, I think, most manifestations of devotion must just be love. My own children have fledged our cozy nest fairly recently, so this lyric speaks to me in a way that sits in the heart, but not quite peacefully; it rustles around a bit, it settles, it moves, rearranging itself again, which I guess is all to say that there's appreciation for the beauty of your story and there's sorrow, too. Thanks for all of it.