...more recent posts
June 21, 2001
The Edge of Summer
June 17, 2001
Fatherless Day
It’s now over eight months since I lost my father.Since he died, that is.
I’ve learned a little bit about mourning, and mourning continues. I think the Traditional period is a year and a day. Mourning is a way of formalizing; of focusing the inarticulate ache of absence. The presence of his memory must replace the emptiness of missing him.
I feel better than I did, and I trust I will feel better yet.
Still he comes unbidden to my mind, in untoward guise.
The use of mourning would seem to be in gaining control of his memory, which constitutes my inheritance. All else is but his ghost, returning wearily to warn me against myself.
The ghost would rather rest.
I’ve lately seen the Mourning Warbler.
Named for its dark “hood”, the bird is no more grief-stricken than any other, though many of our songbirds are declining, and might have reason to morn. It’s the last of the Warblers to come through, signaling the end of the migration period, a cause for mourning only among bird watchers. Its late passage, along with skulking habits, make it one of the less often seen Warblers, and I missed it last year.
This time, one was pointed out to me in the Loch. I got a pretty good look, but not the thrill that comes from discovering the thing for yourself. I got that later, in typically unexpected fashion. I was heading to the exit at west 72nd Street, but ended up below it, in a cut where the Bridle Path passes under the street. I don’t often look for birds here, but the steep banks of the cut are covered with vines and brushy growth of the sort that certain species favor, and indeed, there’s a flash of yellow, and the ecstasy of surprise, and of recognition.
Before one sees a bird in the field, you’ve usually seen it in a book. You form a mental image; an expectation of how it will look.
It never looks quite like that.
Or like the picture in the book, for that matter. It’s always much more real and specific, and can even bring disappointment, if we are too taken with our imaginings.
I must say that the Mourning Warbler was actually more beautiful than I expected. The blue cast to the gray hood; the way it blackens at the face and breast; the richness of the yellow underparts, these do not always render clearly. In real life, it’s quite a striking creature.
Some say that death is like that.
A passage that will exceed our expectations.
Mourning shares no such belief, but proclaims its one hard fact in the face of Mystery.
The Mystery has not answered yet.
Still, mourning runs its course, and I will hope to emerge from it, not in control of his memory, but at ease with the truth of it.
And if that happens, by this time next year, I’ll have my father back.
June 13, 2001
New in Town
Baby birds,that's what it's come down to.
Most of the migrants have passed through, but a few will stay to nest, and the residents have already fledged their first broods. Most publicly, the Red-tailed Hawks on Fifth Avenue play to admiring crowds below, with three young ones making their first flights in the last week. People were cheering the Hawks on, in their ongoing confrontations with the Crows, although the corvids are said to be among the most intelligent birds, and the raptors are known killers. Nobody roots for a Crow. But there you have it, the intellectual as villain (black, no less), against the blithely murderous action hero. It sells in the Park just as well as Hollywood.
Actually, the Hawks' parental attentions are impressive, and it's hard not to write our emotions on their instincts. Still, most birds show the same tenacity when it comes to their offspring. Nesting is a delicate and highly fraught endeavor, and those who can accomplish it in the Park are to be congratulated.
The Hawks may be heroic, but it was a little Trickster took my heart, as I came upon a family group of Carolina Wrens, on what must have been one of the fledglings' first outings, in the Conservatory Garden last Saturday. I mentioned the parents back on Valentines Day, extolling their monogamy, but I didn't really explain what wonderful birds they are. Chief among their virtues is that they help me make it through the Winter. Not really migrant, they winter in the Park, and unlike most species, the male sings all year long. In those short, sere days of little to look at, and less to hear, there is nothing like the ringing Wren-song to summon my soul from hibernation.
I started birding in the Fall of '99, and the Carolina Wren was one of the first birds I got to know. A pair spent that Winter along the Loch, but they disappeared in the Spring, or maybe I lost track of them among the more exotic migrants. This time around I was aware of a good number early in the Winter, but they seemed to thin out as the season progressed, until the pair at the Garden were the only reliable ones. This is perhaps in keeping with their natural history profile, which claims that the northern edge of their range expands and contracts, depending on the severity of the Winter. Whether some perished, or just left town, I can't say, but at least this one pair made it through the worst Winter we've had in several years. I dared to hope they would nest here, but it still came as a surprise when I pointed my binocular at the high-pitched, sibilant twitter coming from a Yew, and found myself looking at four little ones, huddled on a single branch. They already had their parent's pattern, but with the juvenile proportions which automatically evoke our "oh, they're so cute!" response.
The parents soon appeared with food, and they're pretty cute themselves, but there's something about Wrens that goes beyond cuteness. Compact and cocky, they're bold and noisy birds, belying their small size. The ancient Celts considered them sacred, and told how the Wren became the King of the Birds. A contest was held, with the highest flying bird to be named the ruler. It looked like the Eagle would soar to the kingship, but the Wren hid away in his tail feathers, and used the raptor as a launching pad to the crown.
A Trickster, indeed.
Some strange remnant of Wren sacrifice still goes on in Ireland today, but our local species have sacrificed enough just getting through the Winter.
Birds cannot afford the long childhood we enjoy. Wrens and Hawks alike must quickly learn to fly and fend for themselves. In these brief weeks we gain a little insight into the speed of their lives, while pausing for a moment in our own. Cheering for Hawks, or peering into brambles after Wrens, is no more attention than we would give our children, or wish for from our parents. An appropriate attitude towards Nature will put us in both positions, yet leaves us ever viewing from afar, like Eagle-lofted Wrens, carried beyond our bounds.
May 31, 2001
Put Away the Maypole
Too soon, the season runs its course.The trees are fully leafed-out now, and though their greens are still darkening, the dense foliage has but few birds to hide, as the migration draws to a close, along with the month of Maying.
It all happened so fast.
Spring is part of a pattern, yet each Spring has a pattern of its own. This one came to a head in a brief spell of unseasonably warm weather early in May, but then, in an inversion of the usual pattern, turned cool and damp towards the end of the month.
Still, its charges are accomplished.
The calendar shows three more weeks of Spring, but the next warm front is apt to smack of Summer. The first broods of fledgling birds have already left the nest (these are local breeders), while seeds of Maple, Elm and Ash are in the wind. The Groundhog, however he spent the Winter, has overcome his fear of shadows, and was seen on the Mount last weekend.
Me, I just turn in circles, chasing after last year's patterns, or last week's, until the moment overcomes my preconceptions, revealing naked acts of being, patternless as Now.
These moments may be strung together, through memory and through anticipation. In such a way, we may discover just where it is we stand today.
Today we say goodbye to May.
I will leave you with what I sought at the beginning of the month, but, typically, could not obtain until its end. After a gray and rainy stretch, Memorial Day dawned with a morning beyond the dreams of those who slumber through the break of day. Fleeting in its glory, its lucent beams creased by the trees, igniting banks of dawn-spawned mist, one last May morning coalesced inside the camera lens.
This was it.