The naming habit

Don't worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn't matter.

We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.

— Rumi, Essential Rumi, tr. Coleman Barks, p. 34

March 3, 2009

This morning just before leaving my parents' house — a bird of prey on the far side of the garage eating something in the snow under the hollies.

White chest, brownish red stripey markings on chest, white under tail. Dark grey on back, back of tail; white dots — a few — on backs of wings. Yellow legs, yellow eyes, yellow stripe on top of beak.

Never found it in the bird book. Just took notes. My mother and I were glued to the binocs looking at it.

Amazing to study something so closely and remain just outside the naming of it. Naming is such a habit. To get on the internet and google just about anything is a deeply ingrained habit, too: the specs of the bird in the yard to find out the name and thus move on to more knowledge. Nothing wrong with that.

Instead, poetry: holding firmly to the only thing in hand: bird eating prey in snow, ourselves just beyond knowing.