Foreword
The call of the whippoorwill lingers in memory, particularly for its distinctive, loud, rhythmic "whip-poor-will" cry repeated over and over. I remember the bird, strictly nocturnal, for its late evening and early morning cries, and lying in bed listening to it, I've thought the bird captures symbolically all the longings of a human lifetime.
Its family is Caprimulgidae and its species Caprimulgus vociferous. Leaf-brown with a black throat, this elusive bird is found from Southern Canada to the southern United States and mountains in Mexico. It feeds on flying night insects and moths and prefers open woodlands near fields. It nests on the ground among dead leaves. Few individuals have observed it, knowing it mostly, as I do, from its distinctive night utterances.
Lying in bed as a youth, I listened to its plaintive voice tirelessly repeating a rolling "Whip-Poor-Will, Whip-Poor-Will." It whistles at sunset, appropriately associating itself with the end of day and beginning of night, end of light and beginning of darkness; early mornings, its cry seems to lament the return of light. Camouflaged during the day, the bird nestles in fallen leaves and twigs, invisible even a few feet from its hiding place. Flushed, the whippoorwill noiselessly flies for a short distance then plunges to the ground and hides. If its nest is intruded upon, it flies away in ghostly silence or goes into its broken-wing act.
The gray bird's melody, always lonesome as it drifts sharply in the air, is a farewell message&ldots; a message about living, loving, and dying&ldots; a message about family and family blood ties; it sings the brief life and troubled days of all that is mortal, lamenting necessarily all that has been lost in the darkness settling into and enveloping human lives. Its cry is a death cry.
Whippoorwill, whippoorwill,
I can hear you, whippoorwill,
calling me, calling me;
from the hills and moonlit woods,
comes your call beckoning.
I hear your call,
whippoorwill, I know it well,
it speaks to me;
to my home a forgotten shell,
take my mind, O whippoorwill.
A mother's love,
a father's arms, I hear them cry,
O whippoorwill;
burned-out fires, forgotten times,
a graveyard call, whippoorwill.
Take me back, if you will,
take me home, whippoorwill;
your cry calls wait,
it keeps me quiet, your lonely sounds
pervade tonight.
Before you go, O whippoorwill,
tell me quick, while all is still-
what does it mean
to live and die, whippoorwill,
a reason why?
Whippoorwill, the night is long,
I must hear your finished song;
the windless woods, whippoorwill,
are calling me, calling me,
whippoorwill, whippoorwill...