‘Night Vineyard

Migration

Suddenly the sky blackened.
Gully and I out for our morning walk down the lane.
Flocks, swarms of black birds overhead.
The noise caught us off guard.
Thousands of wings fluttering and a collective cackle that would have made Hitchcock nervous.
Then, an eerie silence.
To a beast they had taken to the trees and all motion had stopped.
Gulliver and I eased out of our primeaval crouch,
witness to the space in between wild abandoned flight
and centuries of ordered migration,
the silence which follows monks just after chanting the Aum…
We respectfully tiptoed our way down the lane.

Mid February and the studio is all about the dark.
This is one of those paintings which I have done over and over in my head for decades.
Walking out on the bluff in front of Lynn’s house late on the October nights
that we have come to share with this piece of the island I turn back to take in the night cabin.
Warm light from the kitchen where the chowder simmers,
the great room with a glass of wine and a good book left in the wake of Herself
as she leaves to close the sleeping porch windows
against the autumn chill.
We snuggle in here for our own annual migration.
On this darkened edge of the planet.
I wonder.
Do the black birds, who make their way this far north, find this house
as sacred a resting place as do I.
Just in case…
I will leave the lights on.