1. At 10:00 this morning, via the magic of streaming, I listened to Leonard Oakland's Sunday morning radio program, "Morning Classical" at spokanepublicradio.org. He played a series of familiar and often uplifting compositions and he read a superb poem by Billy Collins entitled, "Sunday Morning with the Sensational Nightingales". The poem took us into the joyful experience of hearing certain music that makes us soar. To read this ecstatic poem, go to the bottom of this post.
2. I think this happened after midnight early Sunday morning. I was sleeping peacefully and suddenly the sound of footsteps in the house startled me awake. I knew those footsteps were human and it wasn't Gibbs prancing around. I was a little rattled. Who could possibly be walking just outside where I sleep? Suddenly my head cleared.
Oh yeah.
Debbie's back home.
3. So, yes, I'm getting used to not being alone in the house at night and during the day.
Today, Debbie told me she'd fix dinner tonight.
I loved hearing this.
While I enjoy cooking and rarely ate out while Debbie was gone, Debbie has approaches to cooking that are different from mine and she dreams up and prepares meals I'd never think of.
They are always superb.
Tonight, she prepared pork chops in a cream of mushroom sauce with spinach and made a terrific side combining red potatoes, green beans, chicken broth, and bacon. I might have missed ingredients in these descriptions, but you get the idea.
Sharing tasks.
It makes being back under the same roof enjoyable and often restful.
Sunday Morning with the Sensational Nightingales
It was not the five Mississippi Blind Boys
who lifted me off the ground
that Sunday morning
as I drove down for the paper, some oranges, and bread.
Nor was it the Dixie Hummingbirds
or the Soul Stirrers, despite their quickening name,
or even the Swan Silvertones
who inspired me to look over the commotion of trees
into the open vault of the sky.
No, it was the Splendid Nightingales
who happened to be singing on the gospel
station early that Sunday morning
and must be credited with the bumping up
of my spirit, the arousal of the mice within.
I have always loved this harmony,
like four, sometimes five trains running
side by side over a contoured landscape --
make that a shimmering, red-dirt landscape,
wildflowers growing along the silver tracks,
lace tablecloths covering the hills,
the men and women in white shirts and dresses
walking in the direction of a tall steeple.
Sunday morning in a perfect Georgia.
But I am not here to describe the sound
of the falsetto whine, sepulchral bass,
alto and tenor fitted snugly in between;
Only to witness my own minor ascension
that morning as they sang, so parallel,
about the usual themes,
the garden of suffering,
the beads of blood on the forehead,
the stone before the hillside tomb,
and the ancient rolling waters
we would all have to cross some day.
God bless the Sensational Nightingales,
I thought as I turned up the volume,
God bless their families and their powder blue suits.
They are a far cry from the quiet kneeling
I was raised with,
a far, hand-clapping cry from the candles
that glowed in the alcoves
and the fixed eyes of saints staring down
from their corners.
Oh, my cap was on straight that Sunday morning
and I was fine keeping the car on the road.
No one would ever have guessed
I was being lifted into the air by nightingales,
hoisted by their beaks like a long banner
that curls across an empty blue sky,
caught up in the annunciation
of these high, most encouraging tidings.
-- Billy Collins
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