Among the morning cries of peacocks on a nearby farm, big ass speakers slowly drove by while blasting Emilio Navaira's No es el Fin del Mundo, a Tejano song, in a treasure market filled with a throng of the most unlikeliest -- while a rare Canadian songbird sang. My heart heard even before my ears, opening those tender awakenings of oft deliberately forgotten memories from the depths of their slumber. I had banished them there a long time ago.

I kept my distance, knowing that there is a certain timeless wisdom that created the songs those special kinds of birds sing and their messages contained within. They are the ones that always seem to know at least a thousand tunes, and that can be troubling. Whenever you come across one, you don't also want to spook it for fear of losing what most don't seem to understand.

You find these rare birds all over the world. They’re the ones whose music asks the roots of wild flowers in the fields, the answers to the ages old mysteries mankind doesn’t always see with our ears. They can evoke the spirits of the language of music, in the same way a frolicsome breeze takes the fragments of certain words, puts them all together, and give you a cohesiveness unity of thoughts never known before.

Drifting farther away, I spied a gilded cage with two banty hens crammed inside. I thought about how so much of the music of my choice, lives in the gilded cage of CDs, my IPOD nano, and You Tube. Inside those modern day golden electronic cages, those well-known songbirds allow me to know what the even common sparrow does. It's an ever changing freedom of choice that blesses my senses daily.

Sometimes, when I listen to the gilded ones, I hear with my heart, what I cannot always hear with my ears. It’s difficult to know what the babbling brook is murmuring, or what waves whisper when they gently and deliberately massage sparkling white beaches, but thanks to them, I know it in certain moments in their songs.

Drawn back in the direction of the Canadian songbird, I glimpsed a handmade wooden chicken crate, empty of birds, especially songbirds. It made me sad to remember that some very talented songbirds just end up in such a cage, lost, broken, damaged, dead or forgotten. What would I find when I stood in front of what surely was one of Ontario's most prolific songbirds?

In that moment, I didn't want it to be a silvery plastic circle of only a recorded songbird, I wanted to see and hear the real unvarnished deal. I didn't want it to be a karappo okesutura empty orchestra, the kind you often find in such open markets. I wanted the songbird to be one of the epic storyteller songbirds, the kind who captured my imagination in my youth -- the ones who taught me how to paint colorful pictures with lyrical words. I wanted to see with my ears the real deal in person.

Finally, I could deny myself no longer. I inched closer and stood off to the side, awed by the fact that this rare Ontario songbird, Big Al Traynor, was the real deal. Only a grown-up cowgirl in disguise, the one whose electronic gilded cage is more in tune with the likes of Andrea Bocelli, Sarah Brightman, André Rieu, and Esther Ofarim -- perhaps was the only one in the crowd that day who knew what he stands for.

Growing up in the American west, I learned early a lot about songbirds, as my own daddy was an unknown one to everyone else, but friends and family. Born in the Southern California baby boomer generation, where the songbirds were named Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, and the Sons of the Pioneers permeated the heavily coded language of the American frontier-- that's what the musical hands of my cradle rocked to (along with the chanky chank of a Cajun ti-fer).

We grew up knowing that it was cowboy music and it took on many forms, western swing, bluegrass, Honky Tonk, country twangy, and outlaw music were all various labels that some people called it. It really wasn't something you thought much about. It was just there in the background of your life -- a comfort food to the audible range, a blend of old time values, that spoke volumes to the generations who listened to it.

As we got old enough, it was at the drive-in movies where kids unaware heard country music morph into Bob Mills western swing, while learning from John Wayne examples about how men and women really tamed the west, at least according to Hollywood. Good always triumphed over evil, even if that wasn't always true in real life, then or now.

The radio that often warmed the kitchen was good as the California sunshine, while our parents, despite being young and modern, kept an ear still tuned into the bluegrass music of their elders. With it’s early blues influence, as they nodded and hummed Bill Monroe‘s songs, even though they were more into rock n'roll.

Ours was a childhood that included the times when the songbirds made us weep, not only for their haunting music, but because for them personally, as some of their voices came to a tragic end. They were the good Honky Tonk songbirds who somehow made it seem natural to dance, drink, smoke, love, cheat, and lose your love. Songbirds like Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Hawk Shaw Hawkins, and Cowboy Copas, they knew how to fly high and dream big.

They all soared like eagles, until silenced like ducks flying over a blind on the opening season day. We all cried on the days they died. We still cry for the songs they'll never sing. It didn't matter that some of those same songbirds soared too high like Hank did. His songs somehow made his wrongs right, and in the end, we could do nothing more than forgive him, and grant him a status he might not have achieved if he hadn't died so young.

Last but not least, we had our outlaws like Willie Nelson, Charley Pride, and Kris Kristofferson -- the bad boys of song, whose wings and songs weren't clipped by social norms. They could rebel for us, or in some cases with us, providing affirmation that "We're OK, because we have company." You have to love this special group, because very often they were the most talented of all. Yet, there is this gnawing thought, that if we somehow could keep them focused and away from their detractors, what new heights could they have spirited us to?

However, they were and still are the songbirds that everyone can easily identify, not the regional songbirds, the ones who never became household names. I'm talking about the not-so-rich-and-famous unsung talent in the rest of the world, of the species mostly undiscovered, under promoted, or poorly promoted -- the kind that never got the breaks, or the recognition -- the ones who wrote, picked the strings, danced over ivory keys, and sang the songs -- that quicker, swifter, more beautiful on the outside, songbirds spirited away to the top of the trees of the country hit parade.

Where do these songbirds have to go to get our attention?

“Big Al Traynor, is one of those old time songbirds who tells stories of real life, in spoken word, song, violin, guitar, banjo, mandolin, dobo, and bass. Now retired (and performing only when he feels like it), for forty years he played, wrote songs, and sang for and with the likes of Southline, Hickory Wind, Smiley Bates, Southwind, Jeremy Smith, Jerry Mac, and Graham Townsend.

Many of this deep rooted songbird’s songs are spoken word songs, the kind that those of us who have hearts of writers culturally cut our teeth on. I found him in a place where you often find such rare birds, playing at markets, festivals, county fairs, senior centers, clubs, online, and even on cruises. Like many retired Canadians, he often spends his winters here in sunny hospitable Florida, where maple leafed populations swell for several months a year.

To me his appeal isn't about him having a velvety smooth voice, with perfect pitch, or being a handsome physically beautiful "star," but him performing songs that make us see with our ears and hear with our hearts. His are liquid stories in the form of poetic song, from a unique voice and perspective. He captures the heart of our frontier past, be it American, Canadian, Mexican, or some other.

Here's to the songbirds like him, those who know at least a thousands tunes that still touch our hearts, long after we've moved on to our favorite electronic gilded cage songbirds. Maybe their lives might not be rich, nor may they become famous and make lots of money, but they are what dreams are made of. Bless them all! Promote others like him whenever you find one.

I don't think it was a coincidence that in a typical Floridian primarily Hispanic market, the big ass speakers who slowly drove by while blasting Emilio Navaira, wasn't just a subconscious songbird competition, in a migratory human flyway, that draws more than the real migrating birds.

There are some who will curse Emilio's name, while others still cling to the silky throated memory of his songs over the years. It is unfortunate and tragic, that he was at the wheel of his tour bus, drunk and without license to drive, when it wrecked and nearly killed him and his band members.

There are those that cry foul that he got off with community service (plus two years probation and three days in jail) and I might in part agree. However, there's a bigger song that's found in the heart's forgiveness of one ruby throated songbird, who gave so many so much joy -- it's found in the sincere hope, of a full recovery, that includes recovery from a life out of control.

Maybe, I still have a soft spot for those who wear cowboy boots, silver belts, and a western hat -- Perhaps it's still wanting to believe in happy endings, when the songbirds of a phoenix species, triumph against all odds, and rise to sing again. I'll be looking for that rare bird and praying that it's not the end of his song world.