Celebrating the charm of the evening chorus
Apr 28, 2021
3 minutes
John Lewis-Stempel
Illustration by Philip Bannister
I WAS in the garden yesterday evening, tending a bonfire, its Doric pillar of smoke ascending into a sky of equally ashen colour. The embers of the day were almost out. Always, this standing sentinel over a fire at dusk makes me think of Neolithic hunters in deerskin warming themselves around the camp blaze, British Tommies in balaclavas gathered beside a brazier in the trenches; helping my grandparents burn the dead bines in the hopyard. Ancient things.
Sometimes, I gave the burning heap a prod, so that its orange sparks leapt up
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