Untangling
all moss and feather and wool and love
Hello. This post is about Death & Birds. And it is dedicated to the poet Joshua Bond, who left this earthly life and became starbound on January 31st.
When I was about ten, a local falconer brought his Harris Hawk to my primary school. She was an exceptional Bird, regal, curious, and confident in a way that entranced my younger self. She had never been wild, though the wild still clearly lived within her as she and the falconer spent much time hunting together. The pair shared a language spoken in glances, head tilts and the occasional whisper. At that time in my life, I felt distinctly out of place. I found a diary entry from then, where I’d spoken to feeling like a package which had been delivered to the wrong address and was waiting to be returned, but in seeing this Bird, and in sensing the complexity and intelligence which existed within the interplay between she and her falconer, I caught a spark of something strangely familiar. Following a talk about falconry and Birds of prey, my small class was given the opportunity to have our photographs taken with this majestic Bird. Some kids declined completely, others agreed but only if the falconer was holding her, and a few decided they would brave holding her themselves. I—terrified, but besotted—was one of the latter, and so joined the end of the queue in the hopes of calming myself before reaching her. Ahead of me, child after child had the heavy duty leather glove upon which she sat placed on their hand while they grimaced and held their arm outstretched as far from themselves as they could. “Right,” I said to myself, “you get one go at this. Now walk up there and meet that beautiful being face-to-face. And if she attacks you, so be it.” My turn came, and with chin lifted and jaw firmly clenched I offered out my arm so that the glove, and the majestic Harris Hawk, could be placed upon it. For a few seconds, I froze, shocked by the weight of her, by the power in the grip of her talons and by the fierceness of her hooked beak. But then I recalled the way that she and her falconer spoke; subtle, wordless, body-to-body. And so, terrified, and in awe and wonder, I exhaled the breath I’d been holding and drew my arm into my body, to hold her face inches from my own. She was electric. Humming with skill and latent power. I marvelled at how a being could simultaneously be so still and so fiercesome. We held each other in regard for a moment, before the falconer, smiling, said “She likes you”. “I like her” I whispered, before our photograph was taken, and I handed her back to the falconer. Thanking them both.