Birds on a Wire

I strung this wire, punctuated with beads, to hold the earrings that I've worn at our cabin this summer. It seems like a good place to photograph the "birds on a twig" earrings that my daughter Kathe made for me some years ago. (It's too dark to take a picture outside... missed my chance on one of the most beautiful days of the summer...)

Today I kept thinking of my earrings as "Birds on a Wire," as in the lyrics of a Leonard Cohen song that k.d. lang sings on her amazing album of songs by Canadian songwriters, hymns of the 49th parallel.

Bird  on a Wire

Like a bird on the wire,

Like a drunk in a midnight choir

I have tried in my way to be free.

Like a worm on a hook,

Like a knight from some old fashioned book

I have saved all my ribbons for thee.

If I, if I have been unkind,

I hope that you can just let it go by.

If I, if I have been untrue

I hope you know it was never to you.

Like a baby, stillborn,

Like a beast with his horn

I have torn everyone who reached out for me.

But I swear by this song

And by all that I have done wrong

I will make it all up to thee.

I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch,

He said to me, "You must not ask for so much." 

And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door,

She cried to me, "Hey, why not ask for more?"

Oh like a bird on the wire,

Like a drunk in a midnight choir

I have tried in my way to be free.

When I listen to this song, I am struck by its beauty, as I am when I see a bird on a wire. But I'm glad not to be a bird on a wire, in the song or out. I'd like to be a bird gliding above the river or hiding in the tall grass along its bank, free as a bird.