The meadowlarks are home again. Home to me and my wild spaces.
Most mornings, I wake up to a blend of meadowlark and robin song drifting in the open bedroom window.
It’s tremendously beautiful and I feel I’ve been literally bouncing out of bed with a merry heart for so many days in a row.
Up the mountain, when I am running and the sound of mountain water is flowing all around,
I see the birds building their homes in the slender twigs of the caraganas and I wonder
if they would be angry with me for stealing one of their perfect eggs. But how could a robin be truly angry?
We only ever seem to hear of the buffalo hunts, the easy tracking of mule deer through sagebrush, the arrows piercing elk hearts and silencing the bugle of a bulls forever,
but did the native people of North America collect eggs from the spring birds — claiming just one or two from a nearly full clutch
nestled so sweetly in a shallow home made of down, grass and horse mane?
Did they take those eggs home to their little deer skin tents and scramble them up for breakfast to eat with their bannock, hot from the fire?
I often wonder.
What about the pioneers, crossing the mountains and valleys of this continent, with their babies barefoot and wild, wrapped up in sun bleached gingham and freckles.
Did those westward leaning children seek out the robins nest in spring and appropriate an egg or two? Did they give them to their mother because they matched her eyes, and gentled her calloused hands for a moment?
Did their mother smile at the sight of that gracious, perfect sky blue and forget all fears and hardships?
And for that matter, what is more golden and delicious than a freshly laid egg from a happy hen? The smooth shell wrapping endlessly, as they tend to do. The softly pebbled surface,
as though ready for a mighty bonspiel. That easy motion of a wrist and carefully gripping finger tips tapping wall against Pyrex on the kitchen counter. The surprise as the shell gives, unhinges and splats its treasure. The whisk. The whisk!
The mopping and sopping of French bread and the sizzle of egg whites on a cast iron frying pan.
Oh egg.
You glorious little miracle, you.
Born in a canoe,
