Watching Birds

June 17 2012

As if knowing their names

would bring me closer to nature.

I recognize crows and gulls

and little else,

a black and white world

of loudmouths, and roughnecks.

The exceptional jay, in blue iridescence

the robin’s red breast.

Both aggressive anti-social birds,

in spite of the beauty

that so delights us.

The woods are full of sound,

warbles, trills, and tweets

I only notice

when silence falls  —

in the shadow of raptors

the gathering storm.

All those small grey birds

in dense protective thickets,

flitting between the trees

invisibly roosting.

But this business of naming

is a human conceit,

another illusion of control.

I value my naïveté,

it makes me attentive, receptive

impressed

by the extravagance of nature,

her endless experiment

in diversity.

Just as my eyes adjust to night,

emerging layer by layer

from darkness,

the longer I look

the more I see.

There is a purity

to such indiscriminate vision,

unencumbered by category

or designation.

I suppose I could pose as an expert

tossing off Latin names

sneering at the common ones.

But I’d rather sit still

and watch,

an inconspicuous witness

who feels no need for lists,

for checking-off species

like keeping score.

Never hoping for an orphaned bird

blown thousands of miles from home.