As soon as I heard the Emily Dickinson poem “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers,” I thought of the robins I’ve been hearing in the twilight, when I often walk to watch the sunset over the Olympics. All this spring I have been in love with the American Robin. They’re so common we hardly give them a thought, but they are beautiful and fascinating birds. Every evening they’ll sit and sing their hearts out with passion and beauty, as if urging us to hear something important—especially in sunbolt clearings after a day of rain. And I love the way they will burst from their perch with that wonderful flash of wings. They’re confident birds and they seem always to know what they’re about. My flying robin is heading somewhere, intent on a purpose of her own. Dickinson’s robins are like that, too: they’re part of her world, but they also live in a world all their own, one she cannot wholly share but can honor and respect.

Of course these are American Robins, named after the British Robin because colonial English settlers thought they looked similar. But where the British “robin redbreast” is an old world flycatcher, the American Robin is a true thrush, a strong and beautiful singer found only in North America. This is a bird that both Emily Dickinson and Henry David Thoreau knew well and often wrote about, reminding us how long these birds have been a part of our American imagination, and part of our childhood too, for they are often the first bird that children can recognize and name. And the American Robin connects us all, from the Pacific to the Atlantic coasts, from Alaska’s northern tundra through Canada and the Midwest and Texas all the way to southern Mexico. The colors I used in this image are a muted version of blues, reds, and whites, a gentle reminder of what we all share as Americans. What is it these birds are saying to us, when they sing against the darkness?

Here is what Emily Dickinson thought: