Bearing Witness: StoryCorps Training and Snow

This week, I am once again visiting New York City for work. This time, I am training with StoryCorps to become one of their interview facilitators in Atlanta. StoryCorps is a national oral history project that records conversations between everyday people from diverse backgrounds. They have sites in New York, Chicago, San Fransisco, and Atlanta (plus a mobile recording studio that drives around the country). Anyone can sign up to record a conversation with a loved one about anything they want. The stories are archived at the Library of Congress, and a few are aired on NPR. (Listen to examples here).
 

I am very excited to add StoryCorps to my workload. As a facilitator, I get to learn how to use recording equipment and bear witness to loved ones sharing the stories of their lives. It’s like jumping to the best part of a creative writing class: when everyone reads what they’ve written.
 

Also, it’s snowing. I have my happy-snow-face on. Here’s to the autumn-season that just passed, which ushered in December and all this glittering beauty:

 
The Birds Who Stay
The sun has fallen back
to a soft white bulb
behind her chilly curtains.
 

The clouds are slow.
The wind low to the ground
blowing November in.
 

The birds repeat themselves,
fill late afternoon with their final
incantations before the dark.
 

Will they quiet in the winter?
Hush themselves with the stillness of snow?
 

The leaves are orange and dropping.
The branches, long and dry and reaching
though they’ve no way left to gather light.
 

The birds are hiding there,
calling in the frost.