Well, woof...it's been almost a month without a post and I've been slowly regaining my sanity. Apologies for anyone who actually takes the time to read this tripe. ;) I am in Nashville right now, sitting at this nice little cafe called Sam & Zoe's. Nice little place. Of course, I smoke, so I'm sitting on the deck (ugh...forgot how HOT it is down here!) and I caught this image that has stuck with me, here's what it has become: Mockingbird Mimus polyglottos Mockingbird. A bird with no song of its own, it samples and adapts what it hears around it, be it other birds, cars, radios, or conversations. From this, it creates a melody exquisite and tragic singing: “I have no words of my own but listen, love, still, I am calling. In the evening, they fill the shrubbery with their beautiful loneliness. During the day, they compete with other birds for food and completion. Somewhere, there is another, who hears as I do. Outside my apartment there is one who has learned my neighbor’s car alarm. I suspect he sets it off himself occasionally to double-check the pitch and rhythm. Prolific in the South, none pay them heed. Just another drab little noisemaker. I cannot help but hear I cannot ignore another poet. At the café there is one who sits on a newsstand and sings the headlines. Surely there is a lady out there who is so enamored of the world.