standing sentinel
of feather, stone, self and shell
Hello. This post is about Death & Birds.
When I was little, I kept a shoebox of precious things beneath my bed. Inside was a broken scallop shell, half a small, blue eggshell (which I now know to be a Starling’s), a Pheasant’s feather, a Crow’s feather, a variety of nondescript leaves and stones, and a postcard of Picasso’s The Swimmer. My mother had sent me the postcard from Paris while she was attempting to see all the art she wanted to see before she died. On the flip side of the postcard, she asked what I thought the image might have been when I first saw it, and shared that it reminded her of Matisse’s blue dancer. I was three, at the time. To this day I am grateful for how much respect was woven into her love for me. It is a thread that I try to continue through my own love, such as in trusting that even the most vulnerable of hatchling Birds possesses an innate wisdom and knowledge of the world; the kind of which I could only dream.