It may appear to be a cool October morning, filled with the whispers of a coming winter, and turn out to be a hot Indian summer day. The black of night may fade into a cool purplish navy before bursting into a warm butterscotch sky. It’s an hour of indecision. The first yawn and stretch of a new day, a Monday. A bobwhite was awake. Singing his simple song to a sleepy world. Just three notes. Two the same, and then one a little higher. Mamma Rutha said they were singing their names. Bob-by-White. I whistled it back to him. He answered, and waited for me to repeat. Bob-by-White! We played our game, singing to each other, as I walked down the valley. I looked up Crooktop, Mamma Rutha was out there somewhere. Probably sleeping beneath a poplar tree. “Shhh,” she would have whispered to me if she had heard me singing ‘Bob-by-White.’ “Give the mountain some peace, some peace to draw its strength for a new day.”
