Opposites Attract (She Completes Me)

Image via Wikipedia

While I drove my wife to work this morning, the beauty of the day drew out of my memory bank one of the first nature poems to which I was exposed, to wit:

Spring is sprung
The grass is riz
I wonder where
The birdies iz

E. responded that she was enamored of the very same poem at a similarly tender age, when it was one of the first windows for both of us into the whimsical power of irony -- except that in Michigan the payoff was

I wonder where
The flowers iz

At first I resisted that variant, since my first inclination was to prefer the notion of looking skyward, of the eyes lifted up as the spirit is lifted up on these first fine days, of the eye searching, questing, yearning and then to see the dot, the speck -- yes, there it is: a bird! a bird!

But almost at once I appreciated the organicism of her version, of the clean narrative line it implies, in that one indeed would naturally, when noting those first stirrings of the grass, yearn for the beauty of the flowers so long absent. Indeed, those very flowers might rise amid or directly adjacent to where the grass is struggling to appear.

Here is both literal and metaphorical focus.

But in the case of absent birds, for the poem to have a point one is necessarily referring to those that migrate, else the poem is in danger of falling into non sequitur. For some birds have endured among us all winter, and it seems ungracious to wonder where "the birdies" are when, in fact, *some* birds have never left us. And thus a poem of celebration could transform into a hymn to the fickleness of humanity, of our desire for incessantly fresh sensation, of disloyalty to nature, not its celebration.

I was abashed. Yes, E.'s version is superior. She's quite a wonder.

Birds Are Wild, Beautiful and Just Outside Your Window

Big Pat says, you want to see some birds of Oakland, here's your birds of Oakland.

What We Will Do When E. Retires

Big Pat has gotten into birdwatching the last year or two, not only and perhaps not primarily because of the birds but because of the walking, the outdoors, and the intelligence and good nature of the birders. In short, he likes the scene.

Part of that scene played out tonight at the Northbrae Community Church where local birders celebrated last year's "big year" during which some of them did a kind of ocular marathon . For 365 days they strove to identify as many bird species as possible in either Alameda or Contra Costa county. (Separate lists for separate people for separate counties. Ah, the individualism, the suburban rivalry.)

If you said you saw it, people agreed you saw it. Pat, whose skepticism fits him like a particularly becoming leotard, providing both style and support, told me that he has no doubt that the birders -- his birders -- did not report birds they did not see. Indeed, there is a kind of group policing that goes on that I had not previously understood.

What you do if you see a rare, or even a pretty interesting, bird if you are a friendly and community-oriented birder is text, email, phone all your bird buddies and say, "He's shaking his little feathery tush at me right now and unless I'm mistaken he's getting ready to yodel. Get down here to the slough."

And they get down to the slough and dammit, there he is.

Or not. Sometimes no bird.

So I guess some birders could be cheaters and sick taunting bastards on top of that. But I think not. I give to the bird folk tonight my highest compliment. E. would like not just what you do but you. I look forward to Pat making the introductions -- whenever I get the girl to retire.

That will be a sighting worth text, email and phone call to all my friends. Come quick, I'll say, before she changes her mind and flies off to work.

Note: Up there at the top of the post: a Dusky Warbler, a very special bird from last year spotted (I think) in both counties. The room trembled to see.