Migrator, back again

turning toward the fall equinox

I’ve started watching the nightly bird counts again back here in California. Last night, 256,800 estimated birds crossed our county—yellow warblers, swainson’s thrushes, common terns, and more. We saw many of these same species—possibly even these same birds—earlier this summer on the other end of their 3000-mile journey, in their annual home breeding grounds of Alaska. The birds arrive, flood the forest with voices, build their nests, go quiet with their chicks, and then shake themselves out to start the return journey.

We—two humans and one dog—flew south in a single day, courtesy of aluminum wings shared with a couple hundred other members of our species. We boarded a plane in Anchorage in one season and exited to a different season in San Francisco. In fact, I wrote a poem two Septembers ago to attempt to describe some of the experience of this particular migration—certainly a privilege, and also a responsibility.

I have a handful of migrator poems in Between Latitudes—maybe no surprise given the title—and I found myself reading a different one last weekend to open a half-day meditation and writing retreat I offered at Insight Santa Cruz. I welcomed us all into the room not just as meditators but also as migrators, and that we are constantly migrating—including back to our bodies, to our breath, to our sense of grounding. It could be said that we have hundreds of mini-migrations a day—into various mindstates, into a range of situations, into our responsibilities—and then back out of those, back into deeper contact with our bodies, our needs, our grounding.

Although I hadn’t read either of these migrator poems earlier this month during a community “poets of place” event at the Writers Block Bookstore in Anchorage, I found myself referencing migration as I answered a question about Alaskan voice and identity. As much as Alaskans are known to define themselves by their number of overwinters, the state of Alaska (and many of our states, not to mention our country) are defined by migrators as much as by residents: whales, birds, seasonal locals, immigrants, fish, and more. How can we better include and care for all these different forms of life in our definitions of who lives here?

How does the word migration land in you? Is it a familiar feeling? A longing? An ancestral feeling? A sense of home? Of multiple home connections? I’m interested to hear what these poems and the language of migration stirs up in you.

I’m also looking forward to staying connected this fall. I haven’t had a chance to work up a fall-winter calendar of community book events yet but i’ll keep my website up to date as I do—and you are welcome to save the date if you’re local to the bay area, I’ll be part of a reading here in Fairfax on Fri Oct 24th @6pm.

Much warmth as we head into the fall equinox—may it be a time of equilibrium amongst harvest, and safe migration home from home.