The Birds
Thursday, December 4th, 2008
Opposite the stained glass panel and beneath the dining room windows, two bushes full with dead leaves serve as an eary morning gathering place for 50 or so finches. Every morning, they come here to this small garden area against the house swooping and reseting themselves every few minutes in random sky-cluttering flutters before temporarily settling back on the bare branches. The main attraction for them is a birdfeeder that hangs on a sapling branch from a rope that has see-sawed the light bark away in a perfect strip.
Between the bushes is a cherry tree that sheds its leaves at autumn’s first notion and a dried up bird bath holding scattered seed spilled from the feeder. Smudged droppingsn which are the malfeasances of the summer birds, have been partially washed away by the fall rain. The finches that return to the branches every November are much more polite and choose to do their business elsehwere. When it snows, the birdbath is the first object to collect a fresh white mound and soft but barren place for the birds to sit in line and watch the snow fall.
Last winter, I’d rise at 5 or 6 to write at the dining room table sometimes chronicling the details or events I saw on our block. Most mornings, I was kept company by the miniature birds landing in the bushes and tree branches in great swarms. My wife would spread handfuls of seed up the sidewalk and into the lawn and they’d shove their noses deep into the snow banks to collect their food. From the first day the food was scattered, they made a stop at our house and the scarred fluttering a first step in their daily routine.
But in the rush of this year and the obligations cause people with home mortgages to focus attention to “more meaningful” things, I’d forgotten to keep look out for the birds. Yesterday morning, I awoke at the early hour that I used to write and found the world outside to be as calm and blue as it normally is before the house lights come up. I’ve been able to develop a more flexible writing schedule during the last few months, not so dependent on rising to beat the noise and clutter that accompanies daily family life.
I ate breakfast and got dressed in the quiet morning as I always do. Before leaving for work, I started my car in the driveway and went back inside to wait for it to warm. When I passed by the bushes in that place, I set off an unexpected explosion. I hadn’t noticed that they’d returned, many of the same birds from last winter I suspect, back in a great horde of brown and loud, flapping wings.
Whatever the day had in store for me, which I’ve soon forgotten, I wanted to put aside immediately and return to my place at the dining room table to write about my old friends. Their year has taken them to a great many places, as mine has, and we have a lot stories to share together this winter.
