The other day a robin flew across the road in front of me, barely clearing the curb on the other side. He beat his wings and gained some height, but bobbed and glided, only to beat his wings again and crest an inch or two higher, scalloping from A to B.
Not an English robin, mind, which is a tiny little bird.
But our sort of robin, which is actually a thrush--even if it has, more or less, the same ochre markings of its English cousin.
Barn swallows or swifts do the same beat and glide, but they fly higher, and when they thread their way through trusses in barns to nest in the gables they look like bats.
Sparrows, with their ermine spotted feathers--that have yet to adorn even an Hawaiian King's academic robes--are precision flyers, threading the eyes of chain link fences. Rustic regal, shabby chic.
+(Large).jpg)
But these are not all the birds of Spring.
When we were still having a series of false springs (Hemingway, from the Moveable Feast that is Paris),
the Braxton Hicks Springs varety,
not to be confused with the Branston Pickle ones--
but false labour is false labour, whether for a poor mother or for a changing season--I saw a great blue heron skirt the St. Lawrence seaway at Cornwall, heading west towards Brockville.
He, too, was flying low, redolent of a low rider kicking up sparks on a corduroy road.
Or maybe he was just itching and scratching, like MacGyver's Revenge, the name a road resurfacing crew gave to their rig as it ripped up Crowchild Trail.
Clearly, beauty can be jarringly uneven--whether it's the cobbles in an English road, or the gangly albatross of the wetland wood.
What immortal hand or eye could trace this majestic flyer's span, which, like an old house balanced on a train rail, never fails to creak in the heat. Neither monster of the sea (leviathan), although he is a fisher to be sure; nor giant of the land (behemoth), notwithstanding his surefootedness in the mud. No, the heron is unmistakably pteradactyl, gently flirting with, or, perhaps more accurately, stridently flaunting, eternity?
If you ever need an excuse to get out of the house, imagine yourself making your own space among those who never thought twice about maintaining their dignity or asserting their rights.
Not an English robin, mind, which is a tiny little bird.
But our sort of robin, which is actually a thrush--even if it has, more or less, the same ochre markings of its English cousin.
Barn swallows or swifts do the same beat and glide, but they fly higher, and when they thread their way through trusses in barns to nest in the gables they look like bats.
Sparrows, with their ermine spotted feathers--that have yet to adorn even an Hawaiian King's academic robes--are precision flyers, threading the eyes of chain link fences. Rustic regal, shabby chic.But these are not all the birds of Spring.
When we were still having a series of false springs (Hemingway, from the Moveable Feast that is Paris),
He, too, was flying low, redolent of a low rider kicking up sparks on a corduroy road.
Or maybe he was just itching and scratching, like MacGyver's Revenge, the name a road resurfacing crew gave to their rig as it ripped up Crowchild Trail.
Clearly, beauty can be jarringly uneven--whether it's the cobbles in an English road, or the gangly albatross of the wetland wood.
What immortal hand or eye could trace this majestic flyer's span, which, like an old house balanced on a train rail, never fails to creak in the heat. Neither monster of the sea (leviathan), although he is a fisher to be sure; nor giant of the land (behemoth), notwithstanding his surefootedness in the mud. No, the heron is unmistakably pteradactyl, gently flirting with, or, perhaps more accurately, stridently flaunting, eternity?
If you ever need an excuse to get out of the house, imagine yourself making your own space among those who never thought twice about maintaining their dignity or asserting their rights.
Comments
Post a Comment