Your post makes me realize that what this particular dead trope, nestled in the hay of our minds, has bequeathed to the world is a character. The early bird. Old fellow. What is he up to, these days? Ah, the worm. But wait… the poet redeems him, like the daring director willing to imagine a sympathetic Iago or a kind-hearted Richard. So, he is not simply rushing to beat the rest of us to a slimy breakfast. He is out there in the driving rain—not for his own gain but for our sakes. And not as a tragic hero but as one who delights in work, as good, humble people do.

But you want to know what drink he is bringing us by dragging dawn up in his chirpy way. I am tempted to point toward something that I am quite certain the poet doesn’t mean. Thomas Hardy heard hope against hope in a bird’s song at the bleak moment when the 20th century dawned and the previous century was laid out in gray before his imagination like a corpse:

from: The Darkling Thrush

by Thomas Hardy

So little cause for carolings
    Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
    Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
    His happy goodnight air
Some blessed hope whereof he knew
    And I was unaware.

But in Kooser’s poem its not hope that the bird is bringing up with his straining—nothing so psychological. Rather, its simply the new day—the dailiness of the day, indeed. The bird shows up for work, rain be damned, and when birds sing the rest mechanism of nature turns and the day begins. Sky lightening, nocturnal creatures retiring, day risers moving about and birds chirping—these we drink; and on a cold and rainy May morning it might very well seem that the chirping birds have to pull a bit for the others.

I made a few notes when reading through, and I place them here for lack of a more convenient margin to write them in.

I’ve never really understood what “the early bird gets the worm” is supposed to mean. While many platitudes are trite, this one seems to me beyond the pale. Certainly, people earlier in the queue are more likely to get the goods—that is, indeed, how queues operate. Or is it supposed to be a message about innovation and early adoption? Is it an instruction on diligence, or vigilance, or building healthy habits? I fear that if anyone ever told me in any earnestness that I should take some course of action because, you know, the early bird gets the worm, I should rebuke them for their laziness of thought. And then I should remind them of the old Irish saying: “He who makes a name for rising early can sleep until midday.”

A consequence of being a platitude is becoming familiar. I would have thought it went the other way. If you’ve got it right, is this not a sad testament of significant human failing? That’s not to say that you haven’t got it right…

I imagine that by now he is tired of catching the worm. How did Camus put it? “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

I like your game. There are so many platitudes to choose from, though perhaps I shouldn’t count my chickens. The spirit is willing. You can’t make a silk purse. You can, however, put lipstick on a pig. Why buy the cow? Rome wasn’t built. He who laughs last, laughs—and laughter, as you know, is the best.

In DC last summer there was a great feast to be had of cicadas. The birds could sleep to noon if they wanted and venture just a few feet to breakfast in luxury.

The cicadas are coming out. I crunched several on the sidewalk today walking to work. Completely unavoidable. In a week they’ll be everywhere, chirping and screaming for a mate, a bit of intercourse, the laying of eggs, and an unglorious death and odorous decay. Seventeen years underground, for one brief hurrah in the sunlight. Do they know, in those seventeen years, what they have ahead of them? Do they see it coming? Do they dream of their days above ground, do they plan their mating ceremonies from their larval stages, wondering what kind of wings they’ll wear? Do they practice their chirps and vibrations, preparing to appear more attractive to their potential mates? Do they work those seventeen years to climb toward the surface, do they have it as a goal, do they want those seventeen years to pass? And when they break through and feel the warmth drying their wings, and begin to hear the calls of their competitors, and they’re lost in a brave new world unencumbered by surrounding soil, do they look back to the happier days of their youth, when their lack of sight wasn’t a weakness, when the cool, moist earth protected them from harm, when death was a thing unknown, and long for a return to the easier and more comfortable life of the virgin grub? [May 27, 2004]