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All the Wonders

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Migration/Immigration Season

  • Writer: betharichardson
    betharichardson
  • 3 days ago
  • 2 min read

Carolina Wren with a worm on a branch

One recent morning I could hear from my bed the warbling of Carolina Wren. (Windows closed and house shut up tight!) I wondered, sleepily, whether the wren's grade school teacher had marked it down for talking too loud in class. Such a robust voice coming from such a small creature. You, little one, are the opera singer of the forest.


These last few weeks have been the peak of the spring bird migration. After walking the dogs each morning, I feed the birds, warm up my coffee, and turn on the Merlin App sound ID. It's thrilling to watch the sound ID of the birds migrating north through our area. All the exotic warblers Cape May, Blackpoll, Bay-breasted. Two kinds of tanagers: Scarlet and Summer. The Rose-Breasted Grosbeak stayed around a few days and showed up regularly on our bird feeder's live cam.


Here on my back deck, my cathedral of the birds, I am safe and content. I am full of gratitude and happiness. And then, May 3, the persecution of my human migrant neighbors started a few miles from my home.


I can’t shake the images of that next week of horror. The state highway patrol and ICE stopping cars and whisking people away. These are friends and neighbors, workers and tax payers, mothers and fathers and grandparents and children. This is not public safety. It is state-sponsored terror and cruelty.


Folks are beginning to call them "the disappeared." And I remember the days of the disappeared of Chile and other countries in central and South America. Have our leaders in the United States become the Junta? 


I can hear the haunting tune from the early 1980’s ... Holly Near and Ronnie Gilbert singing  “Hay Una Mujer Desaparecida.” This song has been playing in my mind and my heart in these recent days.


"Hay Una Mujer Desaparecida"

I never could have imagined needing a lament like this in our country of hospitality and freedom.



The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee has started The Belonging Fund to help the families affected by the raids. Consider contributing to an organization near you.



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