Learning to Flock When the Going Gets Tough

How a Catbird taught me about life and poetry

Photo by Mike Lewis HeadSmart Media on Unsplash

Greetings dear Substack community! It’s glorious now in the mountains of the Blue Ridge. On Sunday, Gwen and I found a new “thin space” only a few minutes from our house where a staircase waterfall of 80 feet ascended into the glory of the forest. It felt like stumbling into Eden.

Last week, I participated in an online forum—a webinar—about the topic, “Life After Doom.” It’s the title of a new book and I was eager to see what the author was saying. After an hour, I had to turn off my computer. I was not encouraged but depressed…Spiraling in hearing so much bad news ( you know: climate change, Gaza, Ukraine, pollution; politics, and on and on. I’m not recommending the book.

But, my one big take away from the webinar was a discussion about the trauma that imbeds in the amygdala of our brain. The amygdala is the part of the brain that's most closely associated with fear, emotions, and motivation. It’s where the feelings of “fright” and “flight” get triggered when we face something big—something perhaps traumatic.

But one additional word was offered that helps our “fright” or “flight” response to news or something scary—something that might be dangerous. “Flock.” We can feel “fright” and be afraid. We can sense we need to “flight” and get out of the situation as quickly as possible. But we can also “flock” together so that whatever it is we are feeling, we just don’t have to be alone in it and through it.

I think in some odd way, I’ve always been about “flocking” and always finding ways to bring people together. I suppose, Substack is my latest way.

I am choosing to “flock” with you on Substack and my hope is that our flocking in my observations and poetry will help bring some calm—some reflection and some joy to our over stimulated hearts, nervous and triggered amygdala and our souls—that place where all of us comes together.

On Saturday, Gwen and I went on a “Eucharist Hike.” It was 12 of us birds finding each other and wandering on the trail by a mountain lake. We walked in silence for part of it. We talked with the other pilgrims for part of it. We talked to God and we listened to God—perhaps to one another as well. But as I was walking, a flock of Canadian geese came flying right over my head and passed me to land on the pristine mountain lake. I needed that visual reminder of what I had learned in the webinar—that we just “do” better when we don’t fly alone.

Photo by Steve Smith on Unsplash

That’s my continued hope in this space. Over the summer months, my hope is to ask your help in helping me select 12 of my poems which are worthy of publication in a book. In the coming weeks, I’ll be asking you to help me decide—to take a poll—and to select 12 that I can perhaps take to the next level. Stay tuned.

Also, I’ll be going to the Poetry Unbound worship with Padraig O’Tuama. I’m so eager to be a student of this craft and thrilled to have such a gifted teacher and mentor.

Speaking of mentors in poetry, this week, a gray Catbird—or a flock of them—have showed up early every morning, singing what sounds like the Hallelujah Chorus. I took note. I got up with my coffee and moved to my front porch and there I just listened and watched them perched high in the cedar canopy of my space here.

What resulted is this poem— “The Catbird Song.”

There’s a lot in this poem. I begin by confessing my weariness of a “committee meeting” that sometimes takes place in my brain—where my own amygdala is located. I’m not sure I felt afraid. That’s not the right word. What was I feeling? Something like this…. on the morning, I wrote this poem, I had spent some time reading the poems of Wendell Berry—that glorious Kentucky farmer/poet/prophet who wrote a poem every sabbath for years. He nails so many of them and nails me as well. He hits the bullseye of my heart and finds the center of my inside word and puts precise words to what I’m feeling. As I finished reading three of his poems, I shut my book of poems and lamented, “Oh me, I’ll never be able to do what he does.”

Surely you can relate when you try to do something—paint, write, teach, preach, serve heal of fix something or someone and you realized, as you’re doing the precise “thing” that you’re not satisfied with what you’ve just done.

So, that’s when I noticed the Catbird and began to listen. I took note. I let her mentor me and give me words, voice and song.

Here’s the poem. I hope you’ll leave a comment—a line or string of words that seem to hit your heart in some strange way.

So in my Substack, this is as far as I can take you without you Subscribing. When you choose to subscribe, you get full access to everything: poems, podcasts, all my materials. If you’re so inclined, you can give a gift subscription to someone you think will like this. But I would appreciate it if you’d share the ones you like—that way—our flock can grow.

The Catbird’s Song

by Stephen W. Smith

Photo by Daniel Shapiro on Unsplash

Some mornings my thoughts are many.
Other times, too many voices are speaking.
A committee meeting that has started without my consent.
One makes me feel inadequate; another says, “You’re not enough.” 

I read a poem by one of the greats.
How did he find words in the trees to explain my inner forest?
The words don’t seem to flow out today.
I feel all bottled up and pushing a river upstream.

Then, I hear the Gray Catbird chanting
Her clear and clarion, melodious morning song.
No other birds watch her perch on the highest bow of the mountain cedar.
So freely singing as she does every morning I notice her.

My true work is to notice, and listen–then write a line or stanza..
Like the Catbird—to find such glorious abandon to just sing.
Mentor me with your Great Voice from beyond
Then, I shall string a few words together like her morning chant.

Those crazy birds like Oliver, Whyte and Rumi and a hundred more,
It is not my song to sing their songs.
I have my own songs to sing.
My work is now to sing anyway. Sing Anyway!