Startled Awake

A few times I have been waiting at a light, completely immersed in the minutiae of my thoughts, in the rabbit warren of mental static, churning, falling into that place of, what is it?--that cognitive grind? A few times I have waited at a light and a flying creature is what startled me out of my head. A highway hawk on a sign, a kestrel twitching its tail from a telephone line, a turkey vulture riding an air current, an eagle's white head bright against the green of a tree.

Or maybe I wasn't stopped but driving the time a hawk nearly flew into the windshield of the car in front of me. The driver's body suddenly erect, alert, awake from whatever waking slumber he was in.

And then there are the crows that fly along with you, at the same speed as your car, coasting along as if it were easy, just hardly something worth noticing really, but they want you to see them, to witness the grace and humor and wonder of going forward like you, but above you. Air an afterthought. What could be simpler but feather + wing + flight?




Dickinson wrote: "I hope you love birds, too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven." That spark in the heart seeing a creature so different from yourself--unbound, spontaneous but programmed to sing or croak or shree--that it transmogrifies you each time you realize this, a shift in your whole thought pattern, if only for a minute, an entrance to the other, the whiff of the present tense, again and again and again. Even the house sparrows give reason for joy--how could they not, even in their common plumage? For it is not a small thing to gather air, and rise.

Dear Fine Blog Reader

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In these few past minutes, it's raining, thundering actually. My little terrier is panicked, even on her Prozac. She prefers the Xanax, the zapper of anxiety. Well, who wouldn't? I mean, the small white pill evaporates the chatter in her nerves. Poor boo.

We are listening to Sigur Ros as it thunders. The bird is in bed. Maybe he wakes when the rumbling starts, but he doesn't peep from his room. Maybe his pupils dilate. When he gets scared during the day, he sits up straight, his feathers flat to his body, his torso and head still, as if he's listening for the turn of the planet. Then, at a cue known just to him, he relaxes, slouches a little, hunches his shoulders like he's ready to slack off. Or maybe fly over to his box in a bag and shred some magazines.

All in all, he's really just a small alien to me. A little green man. Jonesy's figured out the code, the mishmash of language he speaks. Me? I'm the mama who's a tad bit distracted, trying to type as the bird regurgitates on my pinkie. He scuttles across my keyboard, silencing the speakers or closing files or diminishing frames with his quick pace. His warm, scaled eight toes, briefly on my hand--a hey, a message from the avian to the human to say hello back. He means it, or he'll go on next to eat the computer cord or the mail. Then who's in charge, eh?