Oh, To Hear Its Call Again

 

I

The Whippoorwill By Madison Julius Cawein

Above lone woodland ways that led
To dells the stealthy twilights tread
The west was hot geranium red;
And still, and still,
Along old lanes the locusts sow
With clustered pearls the Maytimes know,
Deep in the crimson afterglow,
We heard the homeward cattle low,
And then the far-off, far-off woe
Of "whippoorwill!" of "whippoorwill!"

Beneath the idle beechen boughs
We heard the far bells of the cows
Come slowly jangling towards the house;
And still, and still,
Beyond the light that would not die
Out of the scarlet-haunted sky;
Beyond the evening-star's white eye
Of glittering chalcedony,
Drained out of dusk the plaintive cry
Of "whippoorwill," of "whippoorwill."

And in the city oft, when swims
The pale moon o'er the smoke that dims
Its disc, I dream of wildwood limbs;
And still, and still,
I seem to hear, where shadows grope
Mid ferns and flowers that dewdrops rope,—
Lost in faint deeps of heliotrope
Above the clover-sweetened slope,—
Retreat, despairing, past all hope,

The whippoorwill, the whippoorwill.

Were there whippoorwills in the fields and groves and along the creeks of the farm where I grew up? I don't remember. But I do remember Mom always sharing her knowledge of the songs and calls of birds we heard and the "whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will" of the Whippoorwills was one of those. I don't know when they left our area, but just like the jack rabbits we used to see, they were gone.

Many years later I heard them again in the area around Oakland Cemetery where my Lynam grandparents and great-grandparents are interred. To me, their whip-poor-will, whip-or-will call is plaintive, which seems appropriate to the proximity to a cemetery.

I've never seen a Whippoorwill and doubt very much I ever will. They are a nocturnal bird of the nightjars, or goatsuckers, family, only active from dusk to dawn. During the day their coloring keeps them well hidden among the barks, leaves and grasses.

A few months ago, commenting that as I would turn 80 this year, maybe it was time for me to make out my 'bucket list' - that at the top of the list was to hear the Whippoorwills again. Years ago any bucket list of mine would have included travel to Ireland and all fifty states, go back to the Virgin Islands - mostly things that involved experiencing other places. But a bucket list I made now would include much simpler wishes. And yes, hearing the call of a Whippoorwill would be one of those.