Avian Rhapsody

Avian Rhapsody

“You Can Live
As If Nothing Is a Miracle
Or Everything Is a Miracle.”

-Albert Einstein

---

-PRELUDE-

When I contemplate
What moves me to seek
The company of birds,

I am every time astounded by
The complexity of their being,
And the simplicity of what
Seems to be their task.

Like us, birds are a rhapsody
Of instinct, impulse, and meaning

They have flown in the trillions,
One at a time and all at once.

-FLICKER EPISODE-

More than the hairy of the trees, you wander on the grass,
Where there are dangers in your day and pitfalls you must pass
You pause by stumps and hide in blooms; you dawdle in the weeds
Yet seem assured about yourself and where your boldness leads
A scarlet mark below your crown suggests you would be known
But golden shafts are hidden in the wings that are not shown
You flicker on the grass you love; you glitter in the shade
You disappear into the day, and yet you do not fade.

-BEGIN THEME ONE-

I do not know about the birds,
Except that they are slight
And slip the capture

Of my words
Whenever they

Alight

They are like
Tickles on a breeze,

A clink of tiny chimes

That bid a poet to a fest
Of chirps and happy rhymes

They are not much of anything,
But everything I love

When I am hopping on the grass
Or flying high above


-BEGIN THEME TWO-

The swallows hoist themselves like Grecian sails,
For so absorbed in matters of the heart,

They boldly glide by dangers without care
And from the course of romance do not part

They share an ancient language so obscure
That other birds don’t start to hear them speak

They spoon in rising curves and figure-eights
And more than not, they gain the one they seek.

-NUTHATCH EPISODE-

Oh, blue-gray, black, and silver soul,
Your breast is wedding lace

And, in your flutter, I find faith
And truth upon your face

No wrong can seep into your heart,
No sin can stain your wing

You are the forest’s angel meek,
A shy and blissful thing

I wish that I were like to you,
A small and tender bird

That slips the notice of the night
But in the light, is heard.

-WAXWING EPISODE-

The berry bush is full of grace,
And, in its bosom, hides a bird �"

I know this, for I once by chance,
Saw “birdly” things as they occurred:

A tiny beak peaked from the leaves,
Then disappeared into the shade

To giggle in a queer delight
And tremble in the mirth it made.

-CONTINUE THEME ONE-

I do not know about the birds,
Except that they are quick
And bounce from branch

To bush,

To brain 

And somehow never stick

They only seek to win the day; they are a chortled joy
That undermines a poet’s plan with tricks that they employ
They are not much of anything, but everything I am
When I am hiding from the rain or feeding in a glen

-CONTINUE THEME TWO-

The mourning doves love in another way,
Wherein no impulse moves them from a perch

Like marble gods that mock a beardless wind �"
They wait in wisdom and decline to search

They have a secret hidden in themselves
And share it not, though it the other knows:

A troth is sanctioned in a prudent way
And slowly comes to comfort as love grows.

-KINGFISHER EPISODE-

And there you perch upon a branch so fine,
A lappet moth might break it with a wing

And how you gaze at me

With open heart!

I half-expect 
The Earth itself

To sing

You are God’s crested harlequin of day
The one “most happy in his happiness”

You mock what is
Insensible beneath,

Yet deign to be
The love that I confess.

-HUMMINGBIRD EPISODE-

When he is in a garden’s eye, the Earth is truly his
He never seems to will or was, in being what he is

From bloom to bloom, he is a blur
A blear of tiny wings �"

But when he sips the dew of day,
He seems the gist of things

A vital soul, a toy of God,
A slight and sudden breeze 

That zigzags through the hollyhocks,
Then, rushes for the trees

He hums his life and flutters fast �"
He is a mind aware that loving eyes

Are loving him,
When he is here

And there.

-BEGIN INTERLUDE-

Where do birds go when they fly?
What trees are their homes today?
Do they live from perch to perch?
And could they live another way?

They live in oak trees by the lake
And elms that rise above the hill
They sometimes wander far afield
And always go what ways they will

-FINCH EPISODE-

The finch that fed
On crumbs of bread

And had no fear of me

Lies silent on
A powdered leaf

Beneath a powdered tree

Her faith was cudgeled

In the cold -

She died here

All alone,

A statue in the other world,
Her sculptor widely known

See how she flies
But does not rise
Into the dreary haze,

A remnant
In the after-gloom
To sadden and amaze.

-END THEME ONE-

I do not know about the birds,
Except that they are

Here

And like us all
Must lead their lives
Without a purpose clear

They are brief answers
To long thoughts,

A Happy children’s book,
With pop-up pages everywhere
That I am bound to look

They are not much of anything,
But everything I sing,

When I am perched upon a branch,
And fancy takes to wing.

-CONTINUE THEME TWO-

The redbirds, at their leisure, feed on love,
And couples dine together when they pair -
They keep the rules that govern company:
They nod a little and a little share

They move in semicircles on the grass
And chat their pretty patois as they do
But pregnant pauses seem to be a theme
Before love's conversation, they renew


-END INTERLUDE-

Where do birds go when they die?
What takes up their tiny souls?
Do they find their meaning in
The act of filling tiny holes?

Birds are the cursive in life’s book,
The ink that makes a day seem true
For they are warbled words of God
And feathered parts of me and you.

-END THEME TWO-

So are we brought together, bride and man,
In sundry rites of love in dizzy youth,

And like the birds must love as we are made
In fragile acts of faith and doubtful truth.

But no heart yet has found a way to pair
That can instruct another who would mate,

For rituals are fashioned in two ways:
One by the bird, one by the hand of fate.

-ORIOLE EPISODE-

No bolder beauty
I have seen

Than black
And orange

In league
With green,

High up upon
A branch, bedight

In budding leaves
And beams of light

No better beauty I have kept,
So long wherein a beauty leapt,

For in its bursting gleam of birth
I saw the passion of the Earth.

---

“Consider the birds of the air, how they
neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns,
and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.”

A Long Read - Notes:

  Eventually, Paris (the Christian personalist) began to consider the possibility that he was a necessary part of a greater and more important life structure.  He wondered why there are so many birds, and so many species of them. That caused him to ponder how all verifiably living things exist on a single planet in a known universe of at least 200 billion trillion stars. He concluded that he could not be separate from or more important than something that big and that complicated. “All I really know is that I seem to be the result of it,” he concluded, “and that my life is lived out within a context of chirping birds and countless stars.”

  To Paris, birds represented the freedom to enjoy doing existentially important things, and to do so while regularly experiencing the extreme exhilaration of flight.

  The poet speaks directly to Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s magnificent line: “Ye did not know the sacred dust.” Paris regularly viewed roadkill with indifference, but the sight of a dead bird who he had come to know on a personal basis provoked genuine grief in him, as well as disheartening thoughts of his mortality �" He returns to this issue even more directly in The Sixth Decoration.

  Putting aside the pairing activities of the avian world, Paris was a Christian personalist who believed that every act of love is a fragile demonstration of faith, one that is at least in part based on an individual’s belief in the concept of love, his highly personalized understanding of that concept, and his ability to express it.

This is not to say that Paris believed that love is an individual’s invention, only that a person’s concept of love and his means of expressing it are unique. In others words, there may indeed be an objective form of love, but given a person’s unique understanding of his reality, he is doomed to be an emotional Mr. Magoo where love is concerned.

  Oriole eggs incubate for about two weeks. The male helps in nest construction. It is often a “hanging” nest, but sometimes, nests are built behind the leaves of a shrub to protect it from the wind. Both parents feed the nestlings. Paris said he did not a observe the eggs hatching, but that watching the female feed the hatchlings, while the male was perched nearby caused him to think of the miraculous phenomenon of birth. That all of it took place against a backdrop of highly contrasting colors suggested to him a boldness in Creation.
© Jun 7