Behind a building in Burlington along Lake Champlain, with a ripe scent of eau de sewage, what did I hear in a nearby maple tree? Singing blackbirds!
I tossed my laptop and coat in my Toyota, covering the windshield scraper on the carseat, and walked along the icy and slushy parking. In the late afternoon, I stood beneath that tree. In the tree’s tiptop bare branches, the blackbirds gazed out at the lake, busily harmonizing.
A woman walked by with her down jacket zipped to her knees, hood tight over her head, walking a dog in a sweater. Time to unzip, let in a little sunshine, live a little.
Until the next ice storm.
“Mockingbirds” by Mary Oliver
This morning
two mockingbirds
in the green field
were spinning and tossingthe white ribbons
of their songs
into the air.
I had nothingbetter to do
than listen.
Stony Soil Vermont 
“jacket unzipped to the knees” says it all.
My 13-year-old and I were speculating whether the garden is actually a fiction I made up. She says she was just humoring me, and, yes, it’s forever winter in Vermont, climate change notwithstanding….. Humph.
I recently saw – and Oh Spring joy, heard a catbird. Birdsongs do it for me too.
Really, there’s nothing like birdsong, is there?