you, a bird and the endless now
nothing to regret, nothing to forebode
Hello. This post is about Death & Birds.
Last year, during a particularly hectic baby-Bird-season shift at the rescue centre, I opened a cage door to feed a group of young Long-tailed Tits. Having recently learnt how to take short bursts of flight, four of the five Birds came fluttering out. There was no chaos to it, it was as if they were butterflies or a poem, softly taking to the air and landing, like falling snow, about my person—one on each shoulder, one in the crook of my elbow and one who slotted itself in the centre of my chest, just inside my bra.
There is something that seems to happen whenever a Bird chooses to land on me. It’s as though the unspeakable privilege of momentarily becoming perch or platform to a being who can traverse both land and sky pulls me entirely into the present. The present, it turns out, is a timeless place. There is only it. Nothing to regret, nothing to forebode. Just you, a bird, and the endless now.
Standing there, speckled with Long-tailed Tits, I wondered whether this is how trees feel. God, I hope that this is how trees feel.