Flightless

I keep washing my hands. Soap and warm water. Soap and hot water. Soap and vinegar and hot water. The trespass can not be erased. I can not remove the fact that I’ve severely maimed another.
I found her laying outside my front doorstep. So tiny. So delicate. So vulnerable even in death. Her beak smaller than most of the seeds within the feeder. Her feathers varying hues of blacks and grays with a some pale yellows peaking through. She was a thing of soft, fragile beauty. A petite Pine Siskin.
I decided to pluck out a few of her feathers before disposing of her. I had never plucked a bird before. It was rather like pulling out a hair. A slight resistance but with a gentle tug it comes right out. After taking a few tail feathers, I spread her wings for a look. An array of yellows radiated up from the base ending in a contrast of black. How could I possibly pluck these? The angelic wing needed to stay intact, whole, maintaining its sweeping arc of color and form. Clearly, the entire wing needed to be cut off. Taking her into the kitchen, I pulled out my sturdy, sharp poultry shears. Locating the joint where her wing met her body, I clipped through it. The severing far too easy. I pulled on her still attached wing and clipped it as well. Their petite size made it possible to slip both together into a hand-blown glass container that seemed made to hold them.
Out in the garden, I buried what was left of her while saying some words of appreciation, speaking to her beauty. Then to the sink to wash up. While looking at her fragile little flightless wings, having a moment of pride that they were mine to possess and admire, I was suddenly struck by a visual flash of her mutilated body in its grave. It instantly felt so utterly wrong to have taken them from her. The dainty little wings were not mine to clip nor mine to keep. I quickly took them outside to bury alongside her. I let my tears fall into her tiny unmarked spot in my garden. I asked for her forgiveness but do not expect any to be given. After all, clipping the wings of another, dead or living, bird or human is an unforgivable act. Crushed and ground down, a soul stifling trespass. An act that, in my not too distant past, I allowed another to commit against me. Something I pray never to repeat. Never to allow myself to make another, or for them to make me, flightless again.

For The Birds

P1010507

I’m enchanted with my reoccurring day dream that birds taught us language. In this dream, they inspired us to sing before we could talk. Captivated by the birds varied melodies, we became emboldened to follow their led. At first startled and then delighted when we found our voices rising up to the sky to match their notes.

Thus, we went from grunts, grrrs, grumblings to recreating the simple

caw of the crow

chirp of the chickadee

twitter of the wren

hoot of the owl.

Sounds that we too could make. We were encouraged, mystified, enraptured. The birds’ lyricism stirred us with desire to imitate their beauty even further. To sing as they sing with a musical voice like the Yellow-eyed Junco – chit chit chit weedle weedle che che che. Or the rapid song of the Yellow Warbler – sweet sweet sweet, I’m so sweet.

We then took their simple songs and turned them into our own full throated melodic expressions. Slowly these became woven together into phrases for which we developed meanings.

Ka, ka, who, che, became ‘beware of the alligator’

Na, ni, chit, cha, became ‘sweet berries by the stream’

Twee, twee, sweet, deee-de, became ‘hey baby, what are you doing tonight?’

Pit, pree, weedle, became ‘danger stay close’

And so it went, in my mind’s fanciful eye, that these strung together imitations got broken down into words. Thereby forming an even more complex way to communicate. Words that grew in depth and meaning. Words that can transport us from where we are at the present moment to other places, other times, other realities. Words that evoke joy, sorrow, compassion, hatred, fear, love, the entire gamut of human emotions. Words that provide our lives with depth and richness of language. Words that we take for such granted.

Yet even with the fecundity of language our words can carry us only so far. It is within the music, the melody, that remains under those words, once only notes, which gives our human hearts true flight. Melodies that lift us to the heavens and beyond. Melodies forever and always inspired by the birds.