A Minor Thrasher

A Minor Bird
By Robert Frost

"I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;

Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear no more.

The fault must partly have been in me.
The bird was not to blame for his key.

And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song."



This is my favorite poem by Robert Frost. It's short and simple. Easy enough to memorize, that its been a mantra to me in challenging times.

Right now, I have a much more literal interpretation than in times past.

It is early April in the Blue Ridge mountains and our little home camp has become the battle ground for dozens of migratory birds. Working hard to stake their claims and prove their worth to sire the next generation.

One species in particular; The brown thrasher (Toxostoma rufum) is a large songbird in the Mimidae family.  They are close cousins of the mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos).  Though most are more familiar with the mockingbird because of their habit of occupying urban areas.

The thrasher prefers dense woodland and is adapted with his curved bill to sift through the leaf litter for insects. He keeps low to the ground unless he is displaying his impressive vocabulary from a high point.  His lexicon rivals or even surpasses his mockingbird cousins, with 2000+ unique vocalizations.

They learn these songs from other birds, environmental sounds and even human language. During breeding displays, they sing their cheerful compilations from the treetops. Repeating each unique phrase twice, in contrast to mockingbirds who recite their phrases in sets of 3.

This mornings wake up call, I had one on each side of our trailer, singing up a storm. I leaned out the window to try and get a good picture for this article, and noticed two males, in addition to the singers, aggressively chasing each other through the trees.

This represents a peak in weeks of escalation. When I picked up the first male on my merlin app, and researched him, he was only stopping by to join the dawn chorus. Then he started singing at dusk too. Then all day long. Then an occasional rival would come through and sing back briefly before moving on.

Now it seems this property is the hottest commodity in town. Our background noise is a cacophony of horny, tweety rap battles from dawn til dusk.

I am mostly quite amused by this activity. I notice new phrases and calls added to his repitore every day. As someone who's raised cockatiels, I feel like I'm conditioned to pick out the human words from the tweety imitations. I've heard him say "oh no! Oh no!", "I love you" and "bowchickawowow".

I also know from raising cockatiels and children, that no matter how much you love and enjoy observing and interacting with these creatures, too much of anything can be grating.

I don't wish my thrasher would "fly away, and not sing by my house all day", but I do find myself rooting for him to achieve his objective. Find a nice girl, settle down, and concentrate on eating ticks and raising chicks. He makes it hard to observe and interact with the other species around with his cluttered and constant refrain drowning out all other calls.

His constant, unrelenting song reminds me of a different kind of relentless noise I once struggled with—the sound of children, ever-present in my life when I first discovered Frost’s poem.

I was in the trenches of raising small children. I was at the peak of my scrupulosity under cult mind control. I was sleep deprived, overwhelmed and overworked. 

I was always either pregnant or breastfeeding, which was so physically taxing for me. While also changing diapers, preparing meals, planning activities and trying to keep a clean house.

In this state of burnout, I was prone to hyper stimulation. With the brain flooded with cortisol, noise and motion feels like danger. It triggers fear and anger and feels deeply uncomfortable. At this time, my most prevalent stimulation was the often joyous sound of children just doing what they do.

At that time, the conclusion of the poem struck me as shame, which I was conditioned to utilize for behavior control, so it worked. It became something of a personal mantra. "Of course there may be something wrong, in wanting to silence any song".  It was the same kind of admonition I'd hear from people at church when I dare utter some small complaint about my troubles or discomfort.

Like the thrasher picking up fragments of the forest and weaving them into his song, I absorbed the voices around me. The admonitions, the well meaning, but toxic reassurances, they joined the chorus of my own inner voice. And frost's poem fit that purpose like a glove at that time.

Every time exhaustion or frustration crept in, the echoes of my conditioning filled the space before I could even form my own thoughts:

"You should be grateful, Children are a blessing!"

"Good mothers don’t complain."

"Some people have it so much worse!"

"The fault must partly have been in me.
The bird was not to blame for his key.

And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song."

Like the thrasher, we don’t just exist in our surroundings, we become shaped by them. Human mimicry can become a cage when the messages we absorb are limiting or harmful. The thrasher, whose mimicry is neutral or even joyful, is also repeating the echos of his conditioning for the approval of his peers.

Nowadays, as I've done the work to shed and heal from that useless and destructive shame, the message of Frost's poem is no less a mantra for me. Instead of making me feel ashamed for struggling with things beyond my control, the poem now reminds me that the real work lies within myself.

"The bird was not to blame for his key"

When I'm hyperstimulated and stressed by environmental factors, raging against those factors does little good, and is counterproductive to who I wish to be and how I strive to behave. Instead, it needs to be a DBT (dialectic behavior therapy) exercise.

I can't always control my environment, but I can control how I respond to it. Instead of resisting the noise, I remind myself to step back, breathe, and let the bird be.

Just as I now listen to the thrasher’s song with awareness rather than resistance, I’ve also learned to recognize those internalized voices for what they are. Just parody, not truths I have to obey.  Irritating echos that exist beyond my control, but which don't have to be silenced or controlled.

I no longer hear Frost’s words as an admonition, but as a kind and beautiful invitation. Recognize the echoes and let them be. Thoughtfully choose which songs to carry forward.