Birds singing at 4 a.m. / Blue sky alternating with dark clouds

When I read Sabine's recent post about blog housekeeping, I didn't realize that I was no longer receiving an email each time someone commented on my blog.  Finally I realized that there was a backlog of comments that were awaiting my moderation.  Thank you for your comments.  I am sustained by our conversations through our comments.   

This time of year brings frequent changes in the weather in the coastal Pacific Northwest.  It's been cold enough at night that I am sleeping as well as I do in the winter, with all my winter covers on my bed and all my windows wide open.  I'm enjoying watching my porch garden bloom.  I've been seeing an osprey flying above the portion of Lake Whatcom that is just beyond Scudder Pond as well as Great Blue Herons.  There is still some cottonwood fluff in the air.  I've seen more Swallowtails than I can ever remember seeing.

Morelle at Rivertrain brought Daša Drndić's life and death to my attention with a link to the interview titled "There Are No Small Fascisms." Our public library has a copy of Trieste, and I've put it on hold.  From what I've read about the book, it is as difficult and challenging to read as The Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler, and as important to read in these times.  

Choral

Easter / Counting the Omer / April 8, 2012

It was in 1997 that I first heard Jeff Buckley singing (skip the ad) this version of Leonard Cohen's haunting and oddly transcendent song. I've never heard a version that moved me more. When I was a little girl we went to church every Sunday, and on Easter we sang a song that repeated the word hallelujah sixteen times.

"All the intelligence and talent in the world can't make a singer. The voice is a wild thing. It can't be bred in captivity."
-- from The Song of the Lark, by Willa Cather, 20th-century American author.

From my porch, I can hear the birds begin singing when it is still dark on these April mornings.

Here is where I first learned about counting the Omer.

("Baby Bird is a computer trackpad drawing by am from 2005, during the first year that I had a computer, my iBookG4).