Bird

In response to Hope is the Thing with Feathers, a poem by Emily Dickinson

A bird, a winged dinosaur.

Not the cleverest of the animals,

still it makes people dream of taking to the air,

moving swiftly, apparently effortlessly,

commanding the expanse of the open spaces.

Unbound, disappearing over the horizon to explore lands unknown.

Don’t we all long to follow them to warmer climates?

Don’t we all long to turn our eagle eyes to the vastness of plains and mountains,

and see in details the Earth turn under our wings?

Still, very few are eagles, others are peacocks, more concerned to show off a wheel of colourful feathers,

Others are fat chicken ready for the slaughter,

Others are dodos, flightless and due for extinction,

Others are penguins, huddling together for protections against the freezing cold of the Antarctic.

For every man there is a bird to identify with.

There have often been a bird ( of the avian kind ) in my married life. A variety of abandoned, lost or otherwise suffering birds have often entered that life. Oiled and helpless seabirds as well as Spring-time fledglings, mistakenly thought by well intentions people to be parentless, have arrived in need of my wife's TLC. She instinctively knew how to treat their individual requirements rather than take them to the vet. Many casualties were carefully nursed back to fitness and enabled to return to their natural environment, the wild! I well remember the hopeful, heart-stopping moments when ' patients ' were released from her protective hands. No longer earth-bound, they swam, fluttered, flew or soared away, without a backward glance, squark, trill or twitter of appreciation!Although those healing hands now are still, I gain consolation from knowing that others like them remain actively protecting our feathered friends, the birds.

I never had a bird. I could never deal with the fact that locking them in cages seems like taking their life away; taking away their hope of a better life, or better climate. My uncle kept canaries all his life. They were kept in a big cage on the balcony of his flat's kitchen. The flat was always cold, with no central heating, and very little natural light, and the kitchen door was always open so that he could hear the birds sing. As a child, I fantisized about opening the cage and letting the birds fly out into the open sky. To me, their singing didn't sound joyous, it sounded like a cry for help. But opening the cage was never possible. Children were not allowed on the balcony without supervision, so I could never free the little creatures. I haven't seen my Uncle for about seven years. Would the canaries still be alive? How long do they live? I once freed a container full of snails. My mum used to go out in the garden collecting snails after a rainy spell when I was a child. She would keep them in a pan with a heavy lid overnight, ready to be cooked the following day. She was the only one who ate them. Once, I remember lying in bed trying to fall asleep, but all I could think about was the doomed snails in the kitchen. So I got out of bed, walked in the dark and moved the lid off the pan, just enough for the shells to pass through. Then I went back to bed and slept like a baby. In the morning, most of the snails were stuck to the ceiling. My mother was too short to reach them even with a ladder, so we had to wait for them to slither down on their own.

Colourful. Flighty. Won’t stay still.

Blue Jay, Raven, Magpie, Blue-bird.

Stealing little things which have always belonged to them.

Alight for a moment, adjust focus, fly away.

You can’t make them stay. You mustn’t.

Hope doesn’t stay. It visits.

One glorious day it appears. The golden miracle. Chasing shadows.

But then? Then the work must begin…

The visitor alights, for just a moment, then leaves us all gazing out of windows and writing lists… I’d like to follow the flock of colour, harness them in strings of silk, make chase in a mighty hot-air balloon!

But feel the earth, feel the air, mixing in this vessel.

Such delight can not last, feathers must fly.

Hope is a moment. Remember the song.

I was a member of the RSPB as a child, and visiting Slimbridge Wildfowl Centre was a particular Saturday treat. I sensed that the birds had some innate wisdom and if only I could step into their world, I would understand the rhythms of my world. The way they communicated, swooped together, spun circles in the air, settled on water, created homes out of twigs and old feathers, laid eggs, eggs all shaped and smoothed, elliptical, speckled, green or sometimes blue. But those distances were inspirational, how they flew and arrived here or flew and arrived there following unseen currents, over artic snow scapes, sleeping on the wing. How to sleep on the wing! The sleeping always fascinated me. And the roosting. A special word. Can I roost? Roosting and nesting. I am allowed to nest.

I may come home to roost in a rookery, with other rooks high up in winter branches, on the side of the pink plough. Cawing. Roosting. Strange dark cloth, feathered fingers, beady. Flap. Birds ironically never get in a flap. When do they ever get in a flap? Perhaps their jobs are so meaningful – moving, resting, feeding, cooing, procreating, surviving. But of all the creatures, their sense of occasion, their fine displays, their song. How accomplished. If I were a bird, what bird would I be?

A wood pigeon, coo-cooing? A robin, on the garden spade?

A starling – indistinguishable from the crowd, yet close up shimmering green, a thing of beauty.

A flamingo, dancing? A stork, balancing precariously?

What bird am I?

A tiny, invisible wren, busy, always busy.

A blackbird – friendly and comforting. Plain, but reliable?

A goose, with its heavy footfall.

What bird am I?

A cormorant, craggy on the rock, all seeing, incisive, solitary?

A jackdaw – acquisitive, the artful dodger?

The duck, bustling, complacent?

That duck, mothering ducklings? That duckling, making a cacophony, gliding silently?

What bird are you, my love?

What bird are you?

Greenfinch? Goldcrest?

Buzzard? Falcon? Tit?

Un oiseau rare?

In my mind are vivid images of Scottie Wilson paintings of stylised birds and monsters, drawn with firm, close together lines – trees of life, rows of swans, etc., ideally suited to crockery, which he also designed towards the end of his life. The first image that came to me was of Max Ernst’s dark surrealist paintings, but I’m not sure whether there were in fact birds in them.

The winged serpents in Aztec art also made a strong impression on me – as did the enormous Goliath beetle with deep orange feathering to its wings which I found on a light fitting when I lived in the country – really!

Actually, I don’t like to be near birds. I have always said that they should be confined to fabric design and ceramic decoration or roasted with garlic.

I hide in the kitchen when my brother lets his urban chickens out of their ridiculously grand palace that he built and their run with special flooring recently installed to stop their feet from sinking into the mud.

I once visited an elderly couple for work purposes who allowed their budgerigar to fly around the room while I was trying to complete a form [on which their income depended]. Eventually, I threatened to leave if they did not cage it.

Seagulls are particularly frightening, but I love their ugly cries because then I know that I am by the sea – or, of course, a landfill site.