Reading Our Region

Essays from a Regional Writer

Susan Charkes enjoys hearing and telling stories, especially those involving the environment, farming, and sustainability in our region. Discover her poetic view of the outdoors and be inspired to visit the places she describes. Learn more about Susan, her writing, and even hear her podcasts at www.susancharkes.com.

Sample these selected writings:

Featured Items:

Dawnsong and Sundance

by Susan Charkes

They sleep, some with clenched toes grasping a high branch; some tucked into a nook at the base of a shrub; others hunkered in a portholed tree cavity. No matter where, she finds them. She reaches out, touches them ever so lightly, brushes their wings with the tips of her rosy fingers. They blink awake.

Eos opens the gates; the curtain rises on the cusp of morning.

Now they sing. Robin: merrily, verily, see! He has the stage to himself at first, soloing in the hinterlands of light, over and over. Now Cardinal whistles: hear, hear, cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep. Finches buzz-slide up and down the scale, each vying to outwarble the other. Song sparrow scats bipbip bopbop ooopoooplyoopdop. Carolina wren must have the last and loudest word: keytettle keytettle, tea! All together now!

Out in the country, few sounds compete with the dawn chorus; nor are there leaves on early-spring trees to muffle song. Even the tiniest of voices finds a place in the choir, and the woods resound with reverberations.

In-town birds, though, must out-sing not just each other but the growling garbage truck, the beeping backhoe, the screaming siren, the piped-out music from the smoothie store. They’ve evolved to be loudmouths. The sweet, the soft and the sultry don’t make enough noise in spring to attract a mate; only the belters, the avian Ethel Mermans and Michael Boltons, survive.

One morning each week, Doylestown’s streets are quiet. Birds vocalize into the void vacated by commerce, accompanying the chiming churchbells, praising the glory of the dawn. It is, after all, the Sun’s day.

The chorus builds in volume. Helios arrives, his chariot ablaze. Flames of pink, red, now yellow, white. He passes and is gone. Light fills the sky.

Now the chorus stops. It’s time to go to work. Time to eat, time to court, time to gather moss.

In the fullness of light, the a cappella dance begins. Sun warms the air, clothing it with substance; warm air curtsies to the ground.

Dew shakes off sleep and opens one eye. Not time yet.

Flowers unbelt their nightrobes to reveal perky pink spring dresses, for sunwarmth brings visitors. The visitors themselves stir in their underground nests, under leaves and rocks, in sawdusty burrows. They rush out, wings abuzz. The air swarms with their newborn glee as they charge about in search of nectar, now this way now that, zong, zang, zongg!

Dew opens its other eye and blinks. Not time yet.

Hiding in shadow, butterflies wait for their cue, wings folded drab side out: grey, tan, brown. Cold wings cnn’t fly. They’re earthbound, stuck fast like last winter’s mouldering leaves.

Warm air tries rocks next. Cold rocks like to be cold. You can’t make us warm up, they taunt air. Air sighs, sits. Waits. Rocks are stubborn, but they come around. Little by little, crumb by crumb, crusty old rocks change their tune. They dance, but in a reverie, reflectively. Slow but sure, rocks give back the warmth they’ve been collecting. A shiver, a shimmy, and air is on its way. Up up up.

Dew stretches, rolls over, sits. Dew puts on its spangly crown and leaps into the air. Dance, dew, dance! up to the sun!

Now, on warm dry rocks, butterflies settle softly and unfold their wings. Come, sun, they plead. Their spreadwing colors are an offering. Orange, blue, purple, copper: your colors, Helios! we praise you! bless us! And blessings multiply. Sunwarmed wings finally flutter. They rise and fall, up and down, updown and downup.

I sit, still and silent, in sunlight. My heart sings; my soul dances.