While taking my early morning four-mile walk, five or six days a week, frequently I encounter birds. In a certain way we flock together. It is highly likely that I will hear  birds singing and they will hear me singing during my walk. I sing resoundingly with aliveness and gusto and the birds sing sweetly and titilatingly.

Sometimes people listening to my singing applaud, smile, or give me thumbs-up. But it is the birds that most often respond to my singing in a way that I find to be endearing. Sometimes they are cheerleaders and at other times sing-a-longers. It may be the American robin's well-known caroling that had been described as "cheer-up, cheer, cheer, cheer-up."

I cannot help but think of a time when birds and humans were one, singing the same songs, sometimes together. There are times when I long to return to that time and to walk, sing and fly with birds to Heavenly places.

It has been said that, "There is no language barrier in music." This includes bird music. The same Composer writes the songs that both birds and humans sing. There is no other song divinely gifted. Listening to the birds sing has expanded my musical repertoire and increased my appreciation for music and life in the Eternal Now.

There are many bird songs that I would like to end this Ode with, but suffice that I choose the song of the Laughing Gulll ("Larus articilla"), also known as the black-headed gull. The laughing gull is identified by its laughing note "ha, ha, ha, ha, haah, haah, haah; ha, ha, ha, ha, haah, haah, haah."

Copyright 2009 by Uriah J. Fields