I can still see him, the mockingbird atop one of those super tall light posts. He was frenzied, singing song after song at 78 RPM. I was eating lunch, car door open, in the parking lot. A mildly lit hour, the sun tempered by soft white white clouds.

There were the usual locals--the grackles squealing, the white-winged doves calling: who cooks 4 U? who? But it was the mockingbird who dominated this industrial avenue, mimicking calls of cardinals and Carolina wrens, repeating local inorganic noises like the bedeep bedeep bedeep warning of trucks backing up. He was singing so hard, every few seconds his breath, with the help of some flapping, seemed to elevate him a foot above the pole and float him back down, wings uplifted.

After work, I walked, and the woods in four days are transformed into a silky green bower, brown broad leaves matted to the damp earth at the basin of the canyon. In the adjacent neighborhood, I saw a peach-colored rose through the slats of a wood fence, a century plant--or relative--massive thing--each tendril over 4 feet long. The air smelled like fever, like immediacy. I saw a house of red brick with green shutters, pink azaleas and a magnolia in the front yard. A space that must have been created years ago by a lonely Louisianan.

But it’s the mockingbird I still see, crazed with spring passion, transformative joy.