TIME TO LOOK FOR LARKS

As hinted at, perhaps, in previous articles, Spring is for me a pivotal season, because it speaks to me of so many thingsis linked to so many things crucial to my understanding my own identity. Harking back to the days when my dad helped me celebrate my March 21^st birthday by taking me out to listen for the first meadowlarks and to try to whistle them into conversation. And the arrival of the vernal equinox has always recharged my soul with new hopes and possibilities. And it's given me new reasons celebrate as Nature orchestrates its greatest miracle-- region-wide resurrection. Now Chaucer's “younge sonne” just tickles the nose of The Ram, as Easter's joyous Son Rise glistens near.

But now that I'm 82, I've made some changes to the way I “welcome sweet spring time.” I don't have the barn and cow-pasture I had when I was seven and larks and killdeers piped from every quarter of the pasture and flocks of blackbirds decorated the naked cottonwoods with startling black and red ornaments making them no longer “bare naked choirs”, but singing Christmas trees.. Modern farming has turned most area pastures into plowed fields with not a fence-post anywhere for a respectable lark to sing from. And the few old-style hay barns still standing are slumping to their knees like gut-shot elephants. These sobering realities call for desperate measures—especially for young guys like me whose strides have turned to totters or even teeters. No titters please.

So what can I do to re-capture those “Golden days in the sunshine of my happy youth/ Golden days, full of innocence and full of truth”? Well luckily, I have my reliable Honda Fit. It's roomy enough to accommodate both me and several fishing rods plus bait and tackle buckets, my binoculars and three genres of jackets chosen to fit the caprices of March weather. And I never forget my genuine L.L. Bean super “twin-beaver” all-season boots and a cooler full of survival sustenance in case of a spring blizzard. Oh yes and CD's: Eva Cassidy's “Song Bird” , Rosemary Cloony's “It might as well be Spring.” and Vivaldi's “Four Seasons: Spring And Nat Cole's “Nature Boy.” and recorded Psalms.

Now an old Omar Khayyam poem begins to play across my mind: “Come, take the cup, and in the fire of Spring/ The Winter garment of repentance fling / The bird of time has but a little way to flutter/ And, lo, the bird is on the wing.” And when you're 82 those lines mean something!!! So now, how does an old man, “a tattered coat upon a stick” get his soul to “clap its hands and sing”? (That's Yeats for you Googlers) For me, the answer lies in greeting Spring head on by Meadow Larking.

MEADOWLARKIN'

Gonna go out meadow larkin'
Gonna do a heap of harkin'
For that pretty bird that sings with such bright cheer
Gonna scan the fields with glasses
Short fence posts and pasture grasses
For that yellow vest and black tie that he wears.

Gonna cock my ears and listen
Where the misty meadows glisten
With old snow that's just been hangin' on too long
Gonna crick my neck and strain 
For that first long-lost refrain
Seven notes that fill my longing soul with song.

 Heading south and east to capture
My bird's 'first, fine, careless rapture'
Like the “wise thrush” in that Robert Browning poem
Hope to hear him pour his soul out
Like some tapster from the blue spouts
Drunk with mead to hail the Spring that's flowing in
Yes, I'm goin' meadow larkin', meadow larkin', meadow larkin'
Though their likely ain't a lark for fifty miles
But I'm going any way,  In the hope this chill March day
Might afford a faithful pilgrim one sweet smile.

Meadow larkin' meadow larkin'
Let's be gone, let's be gone
On the Quest my soul delights in these last days:
Seen too many birdless perches,
Empty fields/ and empty churches--
Really wanna hear lark jubilation these last days.

If I wasn't tone deaf I'd put some country music to that song, but maybe I could expand the meaning of meadow larking a bit for the non bird watchers: Meadow larking is nothing more then driving out through the misty fields and down the country back-roads to get your soul in on God's renewal of all things. I like to drive down around the South Dakota border where there's still pasture land and unspoiled habitat. The planting season is a zone ahead of ours, and the spring migration shows up sooner down there. The dams around Lake Traverse will be flowing and there's just great landscape to look for song-birds coming in. Take it from me, old folks, if you can still drive or catch a ride, go meadow larkin'. It's tonic for the spirit and the soul. I fished the White rock dam last week. Saw marsh hawks, eagles,diving ducks and deer, and darned if I didn't catch a ten pound buffalo fish—he was wallowing in 3 feet of ice water and he stretched my string real good..When I turned him loose, he snorted and stampeded back to the herd. The ingrate; he should have thanked me. By the way, the drive from Rosholt over to the cassino is quite scenic, and you can take the freeway back to Wahpeton.

Gene Pinkney 3/18/ 20 For the Daily News