The Bird With The Messy Hairdo
The little grey bird with the messy hairdo
faces the rising sun, toes fastened
to the tallest fence post. Her tail tips
leisurely adjusting the air currents.
Tea balanced on my knee, dressed in
grey loungewear, the viral style of 2021, I wait
for clouds to pass, for something to distinguish
me from the grey everything of another day.
A gang of mosquitos threatens. I shoo
the buffet of them to the bird who nods
appreciatively. I don’t know her name
and, at first, that lack doesn’t bother me.
By the third morning visit – she’s practically
family now – not knowing her name niggles.
I identify her regularity but not who she is –
as a bird. Of course, she is not troubled by
such thoughts. Humans, like ants in our
ubiquity, must all look alike in our sweatshirts
and stretch pants. To learn her identity I
could tap my phone but choose to explore
Peterson’s bird book, the slower route to
enlightenment, a process of illumination
on a route ripe with possibilities in the adjacent
pages. I find her – a tufted titmouse
¬– and invite her to flip through glossy images
where on page 194, in the Tyrant Flycatcher section,
she locates me, just sixteen pages away
– a little grey job, like her.
© Susanne Fletcher