from
the sea (5) - Baubo’s bird ludes by freda karpf
Two sparrows are
talking to each other from the top of cattails. Both are pretty new at the
flying game; born this wet spring. They are survivors after all but still new
at it. You can hear it in their voices, there’s something very young about their
squeaky squish sounds that are just a dead giveaway. Baubo knows the sparrow
language from way back. I mean, way back and she interprets this particular
conversation like so: “This flying thing, well, it’s not like I can stow it in
the back of my mind yet; where I’ve got, you know, feathers.”
~
Baubo liked to review her bird knowledge
now and then. Her mind could not conjure or retain much about birds, but her
endless fascination did abide. The entire store of maps and travel a migrating
bird can have is vast compared to the bits and pieces that nested in her brain.
Nobody does well when parsed by comparisons.
Not even goddesses or their allies.
~
Birds made the spring sing. If she heard
something that sounded like a traffic cops’ whistle – ‘Red wings’, she’d tell
herself. ‘What a relief, she thought, that spring is finally near.’ When she
neared the opening by Mrs. Scattergood’s cottage she saw an odd movement along
the ground, staccato or kabuki. ‘That is
the robin picking up worms like discarded cigarettes. She could forget their names but remember
them when they sang or talked. Wrens endless chatter was the little bird that
does Morse code, even though it’s a retired language, the wren keeps to its
rhythm and endless messages. Although she thought, sparrows sound like old,
short wave radios tuning in through the static they never reach coherence.
~
Flying overhead, a dozen mourning doves,
the fleur-de-lis, in formation. Plump and squeaky, ‘A cattail would never do
for them’, Baubo laughed. She followed
the narrow marsh trail and headed back toward the cottage wondering about the
plover cradles she saw in the quiet nursery behind the wrack line. Would it be nesting ground this spring again
or just hollows in the sand?
~
Some birds squirt through the air. Gulls feel like they are full of air. Boats with feathers that through time and
generations traveled the Arctic passage to this inland place.
~
She was moved to joy unspeakable by the
talk of birds. It felt as if she had turned her attention inside out the way
Mrs. Scattergood’s cat comes out of the curl of sleep. Joy does unravel knots.
~
Baubo was going down bad no matter how it
played out. She sniffed her pants, the
nests, the air, to Rule Britannia.
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