The wind and my willow.

The willow tree in my backyard is gigantic.

No.

It is better to call it overgrown.

It is so big, in fact, that a strong wind surge severed its largest limb last fall. The small leaves still grow on the remaining branches, but the once grand tree has taken on a tragic air. Stoic and less beautiful, it no longer groans with every gust. It just stands there belligerently silent.

It is embarrassing to admit, but the groans actually used to frighten me. I guess it was that whole living in Maine/Stephen King connection. It can be oddly unsettling at times. Odder still, is the fact that I now miss the groans. The whole lost limb affair served as a reminder that often such beauty comes with a price. I realize now that that missing limb once held up almost one quarter of the entire volume of leaves, hence the groaning. It not only completed the picture, it made the picture. That limb gave the willow it's "weeping" quality, it gave it definition, and now it is gone forever; pulled away in parts by some anonymous men shortly after it fell.

The tree remains the playground of several families of squirrels, all competing for resources and space, and several species of birds. I have become something of a birdwatcher as a result of this--a fact that makes me wince and laugh simultaneously. There are grackles, orioles, robins, blue jays, chickadees, several varieties of finch and sparrow, wrens, woodpeckers and my favorite, the cardinal. For the record, I am only indifferent to the squirrels since a couple of them made their way into our closed off fireplace and I was forced to kill one after it attacked me while I tried to remove them (for their own safety as they were not able to get back up the chimney for some reason).

It is a great deal entertaining just walking out onto the back deck of my house to see how many different species of birds I can find without even trying. I only get a few seconds before they all fly off, frightened by the sound of my screen door and more frightened by the affectionately aggressive canine that usually storms out the door following me. He is nothing if not persistent, my dog. He tries his best every time to nab one, and I get the feeling that he believes he has a shot. But it is a good fifteen yards from my back door to the area where birds flit about and he is too loud, large and relatively slow to ever stand a chance.

In the early morning the cacophony of voices singing out is really quite something to hear--and probably somewhat annoying if you do not have something by which to block out the noise. They start off singing around four in the morning and then peak around seven. It starts as a string of chirps and peeps and calls and by the end the sounds overlap to such an extent that is no longer pleasing. It becomes pure noise.

That noise is nothing compared to the sound of the fighter planes that run test and training flights from the Navy base located only one mile from my home, however. Every time a plane overpowers the bird song I am reminded of a quote from Charles Lindbergh which said something to the affect that if he had to choose, he would much rather have birds than planes.

It would seem that even anti-semites say some things worth remembering.

It is the afternoon now. Overcast as always--or at least as it has been for months. It is not dreary though, only just shy of that. Alex has his last baseball game tonight. He is sad because he has to give back his uniform. He wants to skip the game so he doesn't have to give it back and I want to skip the game because it is just not fun watching nine year olds not hit balls, not catch them, and not care either way--many of them picking their noses while talking to themselves in the outfield--for two hours!

Sigh.

I am going to go workout now. I will be listening to "Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign To Save Darfur" while doing it. It is an amazing compilation. Go get it. Help Darfur! Help anyone! Afterwards I am going to go write under what remains of my willow tree.

Maybe it will inspire me to write a poem that The New Yorker will accept. But it's not likely.