Bird for Thought

Today L and I discovered the following:

A group of crows can be called a “murder”

A group of ravens can be called an “unkindness”

Do you think that this says something about how afraid we are of the color black? Or perhaps, these birds have and always will be associated with death. Maybe it digs deeper than that. Is it the screech and claw and feather beatings of our nightmares that give these birds such a bad reputation? Am I being melodramatic? Then why in the world is a group of crows called a murder!

S, my other roommate, loves furry animals but hates "bugs and birds." I am now wondering why birds get such a bad rap. Think Hitchcock, Poe, Leda and the Swan etc. I mean… no birds have ever deliberately attacked me. Wait, that is a lie. Wally, the semi-tame, but clearly still wild, macaw I encountered in Peru made a malicious swipe at my shoelace on two occasions. Other than that, however, I have never had a sore encounter with your average robin. I guess I have always wondered about pigeons. Shall we call them, "dodgy" birds? Try your hand at sitting in San Marco Square in Venice for an hour or so in May. The pigeons are mating and it looks like a battle-field. I am not exaggerating when I say that they will mate with the first thing that flaps a wing (or a wrapper, hat, purse). They mate in a giant frenzy, only stopping to eat the scraps of day old panini off the ground. And yet, when it is all said and done, I don't know where they go. The infrastructure of pigeon populations seems ultimately chaotic. Is there a family system? Some people call them, “rats of the sky,” and fittingly so. I mean, do they actually come out big? Has anyone ever seen a baby pigeon? I certainly haven’t. Nor have I seen a baby rat, come to think of it.

Ok, so I haven't defended birds very well. Nevertheless, I think we can learn a lot from birds…from the mechanism of flight for one, to something about their amazing ability to maximize VO2 uptake levels or even more how they look down on the world. They can almost see it all. What does feather color matter anyway. Ravens and crows are just birds. And most birds are delightful. Plus, who can resist the music?

Reflections on a Friday:

The missing spot—when someone dies. How can anything be more important than a connection? We forget about people…for days…months…years and then, unexpectedly, they die. Reflecting back on a person is really painting a masterpiece of memories. The most poignant are those that are cemented or engraved in our minds and will forever describe that person. In my case, they are usually conversations had on long walks in the mountains…the sounds the person made when eating ice cream, or the way their hands looked as they played the piano. We all love things and do things in our lives, but the moments that we share with others are truly remembered. I remember learning square roots on a hike around Monarch Lake like it was yesterday and the awkward way that someone can bend their knees when preparing for a putt in mini-golf (only the real golfers even aim in mini-golf). Even though I missed years of this person’s life, fond memories can fill in gaps. It makes me want to treasure the small moments, the unique habits, and meaningful conversations with the people that surround me today. It reminds me to keep in better touch with the people that I love and miss.

The Belief Project:

Spurred by interesting conversations with L and G in the past week, I have started a miniature study/project to better understand belief. What is it that we all believe? Is not believing something a belief? Even if we are different in lifestyle, religion, personal experience, and personal choice, are there not a few core values or beliefs that remain the same? What is belief and how does it differ from person to person, religion to science, child to adult, woman to man? What is the difference between what we actually believe in and what we think we are supposed to believe? What are the silly, nonsensical things that we believe? What about the abstract notions that we have about the world? Does writing our beliefs down make them real? The grand scheme of questions that surfaced as a result of some brief conversations that I had this week led to the development of what I will call The Belief Project. While the project may initially lack in creativity (with its title at least), I think the result will be interesting. I hope that the apposition of different belief sets will lend itself to a new understanding of belief as a whole. If a poem is a universe, perhaps we can look at belief from a new perspective.
Additional thoughts?

There are moments that become photographs and words that become tattoos. I have always thought that we are walking around wearing a million scars...Invisible, but present. What about that song that hits you in just the right way? Does it leave a dent?
You were right. I should add something that I have written to this blog. And so, below the epigraph by Adrienne Rich, you will find it.


Give me your living hand If I could take the hour
death moved into you undeclared, unnamed
—even if sweet, if I could take that hour
between my forceps tear at it like a monster
wrench it out of your flesh dissolve its shape in quicklime
and make you well again
~Adrienne Rich (“In Memoriam”)


I would—

give you the kite. from childhood. the parrot
we flew. dancing, feathers of plastic,
casting blue and red shadows
on breezy summer grass.
our fingers imitating the beating wings
like voices casting diamonds across the fence.

pretending we were all
parrots, the park less empty—
you weren’t one to chase the wind.

before the crash of rainbow energy with sand, with weeds,
before the snag and squeal
watching parrots soar far beyond reach
into crystalline weightlessness
past this universe—

we shared this moment.

Speculative Philosophy on Coupled Dynamics

Someone is always saying that existentialism is humanism. Someone is always writing prose. Why on such an odd day, would I receive the following poem from a person so far estranged that I had nearly forgotten his face? Perhaps it is because this poem is my life in masculine pronouns. I read it four times. I am compelled to share it.

So Long

I look down at my hand and there's a wrinkling ocean in it.
A halcyon nest rocks on careless waves.
Small in the bottom of the nest, fledgling, my father curls.
He doesn't look so good.
What I say, what he says, what does it matter?
I've got this ocean in my hand, and there's no cure for that.

-James Galvin, from "X"