Returning, We Hear the Larks...

The healing power of nature is often either underrated or overrated in popular culture. 

There seems to be no happy medium between the animist who sees God in all nature, and the video gamer who seems allergic to fresh air.

Isaac Rosenberg's, "Returning, We Hear the Larks", seems to strike that medium, however, in bringing to bear the restorative power of nature in healing the human heart.

After the ravages of war, in the darkness of the night, the soldiers have a brief respite from the horrors of the warfare which has been raging all around them. They are dragging their worn, weary limbs back through the darkness, en route from the front lines to their camp, when a larksong startles the stillness. 

One can almost picture the men stopping mid- stride, and raising their bent heads, breathlessly straining to catch the notes of music trilling through the trees. 

In the midst of chaos and devastation and death, birds are reminiscent of spring, new life, and a life after war - they are reminiscent of home, the peace and joy and beauty which will one day come again after the cruel ravages of war are over, and life has begun again. 

Larks are particularly carefree birds, filling the sky with song, living from one day to the next with nary a care in the world. 

Perhaps, just perhaps, it was what those war weary soldiers needed, that dark night - to hear the song of a bird, reminding them that new life, new hope, and new dreams were still possible. This was not the end. 

And although the night was dark and long, and they were presumably headed right back out to the front lines the next morn for yet another round of death, hope still existed. 

And it would continue to light their way.