Authoritarian Ducks

“Friends, humans, snackers, give us some treats!”

When the dark Duck of the South is floating on the pond,

and the greens, wings and flings of Spring respond,

observe  with me now the ducks as they cavort,

and I’ll tell thee a tale of a different sort.

As I did chance upon this lovely pond of the Queen city,

methinks I encountered two green-headed ducks, quite pretty.

As I did watch them they made likewise to observe me

and they noticed me munching on some cracker delicacy.

They commenced to approach my pondside perch quite boldly

and did by their quickened quacks begin to entreat me

for some morsels of my whole wheat crackers

‘cause I had landed there as a pondside snacker.

No sooner had I tossed them a tidbit or two

than two others like them waggled over to get some too.

But as the newcomers did paddle their approach

the first two judged their entrance as a fowl reproach.

Thus ducks one and two did confront their mallard cousins

and assail them with quackish protests by the dozen.

I beheld as these first two wiggled wildly their duckish butts,

chasing away the offending intruders with quackerish cuts.

As I am a human with tendencies to taxonomy,

methoughts I’d take note these behaviors of birdbrain ferocity,

as their hubris did remind me of the ancient imperial city

where bullies intimidate their kin with fierce intensity.

Methinks these bossy birds are of the bullish Roman variety,

having no tolerance for taxish quacks from the Euro birdbrainery.

Like their Hungarian cousins doing their own territorial hustles,

these haughty ducks harass their meddling cousins back to Paris or Brussels.

“Friends, humans, snackers, toss us some snacks!”

those bold ducks had demanded—them greedy green hacks, 

as if . . . "don’t waste your snacks on those lingering slackers.”

So I gathered my crackers and took leave of those quackers.

Glass Chimera

Feeding Hawaiian Birds and People

While staying on Kauai, Hawaii, I have been observing a cardinal every morning. This beautiflul red bird has lighted upon the deckrail, shortly after each sunrise each day. His visits demonstrate a boldness on his part to venture into areas of human domain. But that boldness is tempered with a shyness by which he promptly flys away as soon as I make any movement in his direction.

Comparing these bird encounters with similar episodes at our home in the Carolina Blue Ridge, I surmise a personality trait that seems to be characteristic of the cardinal breed. It’s probably my imagination that the  colorful creature has some comprehension of his special status among the kingdom of the birds. He seems to understand  (or so it seems to me) that this human is fascinated by his flashy appearance; he also knows that his bright profile is, in some settings, a liability, because the bright red makes it easier for nearby predators to catch sight of him and perhaps eat him.

However, Mr. Cardinal’s skittishness did not interfere this morning with my continuing attempts to capture a pic of him. I was pleased this morning to find that the different physical arrangement here in Hawaii have made it possible for me to snap the pic.

My Christian perspective on life in this world prompts me to accompany this amazing  (to me) photo with a scriptural reference. Here’s the first one I thought of, in the words of Jesus:

“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

In this case, I, human, am representing the heavenly Father in dropping those cereal crumbs onto the deckrail for our scarlet friend.

Meanwhile, feeling satisfied that I have managed to capture, here in Hawaii, that flighty image of the bright cardinal which I could never manage to obtain back home, I’ll cast another crumb of interest in here for you to nibble on.

Before Mr. Cardinal visited this morning, I was continuing my read of Edward Joesting’s excellent book on Kauai, Kauai: The Separate Kingdom.   

https://www.amazon.com/Kauai-Separate-Edward-Joesting-III/dp/0824811623/

In chapter 7, Mr. Joesting reports on the beginnings of commercial agriculture on the island of Kauai. The earliest enterprises were initiated by a trio of American business partners who were working with Hawaiian leaders with assistance from Christian missionaries who had arrived in the 1820’s.

Long about 1835, some Americans leased a large tract of land from Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III) Kaikioewa, the governor of Kauai.

What fascinates me about this development in Hawaiian history is the changes in motivation that Hawaiian working people found themselves adopting in response to the new capitalistic farms.

On page 131 of his book, Edward Joesting wrote:

“In agreement with the philosophy of the missionaries, the lease stipulated that native laborers be encouraged to work on the land. For this right the company would pay to the king and the governor twenty-five cents per month for each man. And it was further stated that each worker would be paid a satisfactory wage and be exempted from all taxation. This taxation had taken the form of labor performed for the chiefs and such other contributions as the chiefs wished to impose.”

As agriculture and business later developed in Kauai during the next twenty years or so, what this arrangement amounted to, economically and sociologically, was this:

Whatever ancient cultural motivations that had traditionally compelled Hawaiian working folk to labor for their tribe and their chiefs—these motivations were being supplanted by new incentives, directly related to 19th-century agricultural scales and practices, and modern, capitalistic business.

On page 132, Edward Joesing wrote:

“The idea of Hawaiians working for an employer who paid them wages, which could be disposed of as the earner saw fit, suddenly introduced a concept of independence that was not easily understood by the commoners and was feared by the chiefs. Adding to the independence of the commoners was the fact that the commoners no longer had to pay taxes to the chiefs. It was more than the average islander could comprehend. There was nothing in their history, no precedent, no legend, that could be used to bridge the gap. . .

On occasion the workers went through the motions of caring for the fields, accomplishing practically nothing. The plantation manager was beside himself (mad). He did not know the Hawaiians still could not comprehend the fact that their wages and the things they bought with them would be their own posessions and coud not appropriated at will by the chiefs.”

My rationale for combining these two different encounters—one with a fresh understanding of historical changes in 1830’s Kauai, and the other with a visiting cardinal this morning—my reasoning may not be entirely clear to you; it’s not even so clear to me, except it has something to do with this quote from a gospel:

“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

 

King of Soul

This is for the Birds

We placed this bird-feeder outside our kitchen window. We bought it from Lowe's, where I work a few hours every week, since I'm an old guy now.

This bird-feeder has been a real hoot. There's nothing in the world like watching birds, at close range, while they do their thing, whatever it is that birds are doing. I mean, it's hard to figure out what they're up to. Their ways are higher than ours.

Personally, I think they're a higher life form than we are.

Although yesterday, I had to wonder about them because of some of the petty bickering they got into that later came to my attention.

One of these birds was talking trash to the other, and so they got into a dispute about who was to have the corner spot on the White House. (We call it the White House).

The corner spot, like the corner office, is the hallowed position on the pecking order because it's easier there to pluck the seeds and kernels from the White House trough.

I thought these two combatants were arguing about the corner spot. But later, I found out otherwise. Shortly after the altercation occurred, I was visited by my informant, who shall remain nameless, except that I shall heretofore refer to him/her as deep Beak, so you'll know the aviant of whom I speak.

When deep Beak subsequently made his/her clandestine visit to me, I was, at that time yesterday afternoon, able to gather non-fake news (that is, the real scoop) about the real issue that provoked the confrontation you see photoshipped here. Deep Beak disclosed this information to me in a discreet manner to protect his/her own anonymity. As you can surmise here, deep Beak's face cannot be seen. I insist on preserving the anonymity of my source.

My source revealed that the two birdbrains pictured earlier were not arguing about the corner spot at the White House. In sooth, they were having a political discussion.

The cold, hard truth about these litigants is: they were arguing about Rule 19 of the US Senate. That's the arcane legislative rule that enabled the Republicans to do their very subtle, though obviously potent, power play on the senator from Mass so that the said senator could not retrieve from history some information about Jeff Sessions who was up for nomination as Trump's Attorney General.

Oh, and did I mention that deep Beak intimated to me that one of these combatants you see here is a Democrat and the other is Republican?

Pshaw! I'll bet that explains a lot, huh!

It's becoming more and more obvious to me that these birdbrains are too polarized to be thinking clearly. They are, forsooth, just playing politics. These two have been politicized beyond rationality; they are just winging it, making up stuff as they go along just for the sake of preserving their own tribal identity instead of their common heritage as endothermic vertebrate Avifauna.

Anyway, according to deep Beak, Jeff Sessions is a pretty good guy, although he has a checkered past, like all old Southern geezers, including this reporter, when it comes to his attitude and his professional history as a lawyer in Alabama as pertaining to the issue of Civil Rights, back in the day.

I'm talking about the dark days of segregation and Jim Crow before the South was born again unto the liberating effects of The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

It has been reported that Senator Sessions, the AG nominee, has changed his tune--has even changed his tweets since the Dark days. He has radically revised his attitude toward blacks and their civil rights since those dark days of Jim Crow southern discriminatory segregatory laws that protected and prolonged the ancient scourge of racism and its deleterious effects.

Just ask Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, if you have any questions about the nominee.

Let's hope Sessions has changed his tune, anyway, since he is now Attorney General of these here United States, which I hope will remain United.

The last time the secession talk got so heated up was when those wild-eyed Democrats of South Carolina declared their independence at Fort Sumter. But now its the Left Coast making the secession noise; we're hoping to keep California in the fold since they make all our blockbustin' movies out there, not to mention most of our fruits and nuts.

Blockbustin' movies is OK, but Union bustin' is not.

All you citizens of the good ole USA out there, keep an eye on your Senators and Representatives. Don't let them screw this thing up. We can't allow this good thing we got going fall apart. We must not permit this US thing fall apart over petty politics. Keep the birdbrains accountable.

And let's hope they confirm Judge Gorsuch.

And you should get a bird-feeder from Lowe's. Get a high on a bird today!

Glass half-Full

The Snowbird Lesson

When I was a child in Mississippi, we had a book about birds of North America. For some reason, I know not what, I became fascinated by a certain bird that was pictured therein. It was the snowbird. Being a boy from the deep south, I had not seen much snow, which was a rarity where I come from.

Perhaps that rarity factor is the reason I was fascinated by the picture of the snowbirds in my little book.

Now I'm sixty-five, and living in the Blue Ridge mountains, which can be quite snowy this time of year.

Early this morning, December 30, we did discover the first snow of the season, and I have to tell ya-- along with the whitey flakes the snowbirds made their visit known to us.

Later in life, When I had become young man, I became fascinated with a song called "Snowbird" that was a hit on the radio at that time, 1960's. It was a tear-jerker tune, sung perfectly by a lady known as the Canadian songbird, Annie Murray.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq9bHd58-LA



"Snowbird" is a sad song about unrequited love.

"When I was young, my heart was young then too. Anything that it would tell me--that's the thing that I would do.

But now I feel such emptiness within for the thing that I want most in life's the thing that I can't win. . .

and

"The breeze along the river seems to say, that she'll only break my heart again, should I decide to stay.

So little snowbird take me with you when you go to that land of gentle breezes where the peaceful waters flow."

. . . and yet, beneath the poem's cold mantle of forlornness there is a trace of hope, a mention of "flowers that will come again in spring.



As it turned out, in my life the flowers did "come again in spring." Those misadventures in love that later became a flood of heartache ultimately were buried in the fertile ground of life's demands. Not only were seeds of new love sewn providentially into my life, but those seeds have yielded new flowers and more seeds.



Yet still, "the snowbird sings the song he always sang, and, as it turns out, eats the seeds always needs.



The snowbirds visited our house this morning, and wow! did they have a feast!

Those little critters are much like the two humans--my wife and I--who find much joy in providing seed for them during this snowy season. There's Snowy on the ledge, and his wifey down in the tree:

Thanks to love and marriage, which go together, you know, like a horse and carriage, or like . . . snowbirds and snow, my life has turned out to be a love feast instead of the festival of the broken-hearted that might have been, had not a wonderful loving woman come in and changed all that lovesick blues to pure white marital love, 37 years of it.

I wouldn't trade marital love for anything in the world. It's so much better than the broken heart that might have been. Thank God for true love that is lasting and faithful.

Here's another version of the song, "Snowbird," as recorded by the songwriter, Hank Snow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBwqqH0LTyI

And here's a parting pic of little Snowy with his Finchy friend.

Glass half-Full

Our Urban Companion

City city, rising high

all strung out across the sky

what artist's smearings could interpret

thy jagged profile, so raggedly imperfect?

Since your swift gold rush run was done

and your thrashing railway web's been spun,

have you embossed yourself in gold-tinged filagree?

Did we who trod the prairies plod thee?



(Aside)

Oh lookee here.

Yonder cometh the world traveler

Methinks

he hath the fat and hungry look:

Pigeon pigeon, strutting like a dude

with bold entreaties for some food

how long hast thou been loitering without fear?

You got a permit to solicit here?



Who gave you permission to hang around?

acting like you own this town.

'Though you resemble your country cousin dove,

thou huntest not, but just beg and grub.



I surmise that in some faraway jungle

thou was chased away by some uncivilized uncle;

and now, thy feathery incandescent suit

cloaks with grandeur thy wand'ring grubby pursuit.



Oh ye little urbanized beggar

art thou a diner at this establishment, a regular?

Hast thou honed and perfected y'er plodding pleading game?

Hast thou an identity? Who gavest thee thy name?



Every city whence I travel

thou are there on the sidewalk, in the gravel,

sometimes poking in the parks where it's grassy

other times pecking pavement, bold and sassy.



When I get to heaven wilt thou be there too?

Groveling and grubby down near my shoe.

But perhaps thou wilt there soar free.

Did He who form the eagle form thee?



Fare thee well my gentle companion,

with winged flapping in flight-paths random.

Cherish every encounter and generous friend

until in yon celestial city we do meet again.



Get along now!

You can't be grazing here like a cow.

We shall see what will be

between you and me in eternity.

Glass Chimera

February

Little woodpecker out my window pane

why you have on you spotty self that little red mane?

Did you flitter by the bird store for that sporty red hat

or did your mama give you that?

It's pretty good though; you got that little red spot;

makes me appreciate just what you got,

a lively color to brighten this wintry scene,

so by this weary human you now be seen.

Thanks for stopping by, oh little friend of mine;

come, display you red spot any time.

And you, you little sparrow with stripy breast;

I hope you know we've given you the best

of bird seed that human money can buy;

we put it out so you'd stop by.

This wintry scene is dreary and cold,

and this man inside be weary and old,

but so glad to share a seed or two

with stripy little critter like you.

Yes, we be so happy to provide

for critters who on the wind can ride,

One day my soul will glide away from here;

will you be there to help me steer?



Glass half-Full

An English Lesson for Birdbrains

In the English language, appending an "s" at the end of a common noun renders the word plural, as in:

Birds eat.

Example:

The other side of the story in English is this: appending an "s" at the end of a verb designates the present tense:

Bird eats.

Example:

In the Faith language, appending a statement of faith to an event renders it more meaningful.

Example:

"Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them."

In Economics language, appending a bird pic and a statement of faith to an unemployed birdbrain's idle musings renders the event an experience of faith instead of foolishness.

That's today's lesson.

Go in peace.

Glass half-Full

The Mockingbird?

Pat and I traveled yesterday afternoon, from our Blue Ridge mountain home in North Carolina, down to Georgia.

We are spending the weekend with our daughter, Katie.

This morning I wake up to the sound of a bird outside the apartment window. The call of the bird is different, not like the sounds of birds where we live. Here in Georgia, the advent of spring is rampant, compared to our snowy home environs which is several thousand feet higher in altitude and a degree or two of longitude more northerly on earth's sphere.

Shortly after daylight peaked through Katie's curtains, as I was laying on the floor to stretch my back and legs because I was not used to the soft bed, I heard the mockingbird somewhere outside.

At least I think it was a mockingbird. I can only surmise it was a mockingbird, because this little creature would not stick to one song, but kept changing his/her calls from one signal to another. So I'm laying there thinking, isn't this what a mockingbird does? Is it not called a mockingbird because it "mocks" or imitates the songs of other birds?

This little aural adventure reminded me of my childhood at grandma Mimi's house in Baton Rouge, some fifty-odd years ago. My sister and I would be laid into a guest room for an afternoon nap. This was unique because Mimi had, in that guest room, a fancy (she was of French heritage) four-poster bed with a white fabric canopy over its top, like you might see in movies about 18th-century royals or some such setting.

As I would be reclining on that luxurious bed, I could hear birds chirping on the other side of the curtained window. (The window treatment matched the poster-bed.) Mimi and J.C. had an outside courtyard with high brick walls around it and all sorts of Louisiana plants within--crepe myrtles, azaleas, camellias, canna lilies and gardenias and so forth--and a birdbath or two. So outside the window, the bird would maybe be sitting in the birdbath taking a bath and having fun in the water.

Be the bird as it may, in the birdbath or on the brick wall or perched on the leafy hedge or wherever it was casting its little hybrid songs, the feathery crooner was doing its yakkity thing, just being the birdbrained creature that God made him/her to be. I may have heard a mockingbird at that time and maybe that's why I'm reminded of that childhood memory as I lay here now in Georgia in March 2013. But actually the bird call I remember most vividly from that nap time was not the mockingbird, but a blue jay.

I think it was a blue jay, anyway. The call was just a single shriek, like a "caw." But it wasn't a crow's caw. It was not as loud that, and much kinder and gentler. Maybe that's the call of the blue jay, or maybe it's just the way I imagine a blue jay would sound, with his little bishopric peaky cap on his head and that big black beak sticking out like some kind of stuck-up sabre or something.

Anyway, back to the mockingbird, if that's what it was, in Gainesville this morning. This bird, as I said earlier, did not stick to one call, but just kept whipping out a whole collection of different calls, one sample after another, like a moog gone au natural under the errantly genius touch of a four-year-old. Some were quick staccatos. . . ch ch ch ch, or some sustained legatos. . .wrr wrr wrr wrr wrr, or mixtures. . .ch ch wrr wrr wrr, or little buzzy blends. . .vzz vzz vzz vzz, or indecipherable birdbrain phonemes. . .brd oop brd oop brd ooo, or jazzy little themes. . .whoobidy shooop whoobidy shoop whoobidy shoop shoop shoop, with every now and then a dovish coo followed by a hawkish wra! wra! I've got rhythm, was a part of the message, like Porgy or Gershwin or some other person of ancient Americana. A kind of poetry it was.

A bird with an identity crisis, I guess, is what it must have been, a little like the interpreter who was stretched out on the floor with nothing better to do on a Saturday morning than harken to those first auditory signals of spring down hyeah in the deep south, y'heah me now?

CR, with new novel, Smoke, in progress