Mancini

My favorite place to run is down the canal road. I use the term “road” loosely, as it’s really just a two-track that’s sometimes dusty, muddy, rocky, pocked with hoofprints, or cobbled with horse or cow manure. But I love the people I meet along the way.

Well, they’re not actually people per se. Some are mammals—muskrats, mink, or the occasional stray cat—but most are of avian ilk: robins, red-winged or yellow-headed blackbirds, blue herons, sandhill cranes, kingfishers, mergansers, and the pair of bald eagles and their one eaglet (is that a word?). I’m particularly fond of this western meadowlark, whom we call Mancini, who is always in the same spot singing his beautiful, joyful compositions. 

“For lo, the winter is past….The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come....” –SONG OF SOLOMON 2:11-12