Catching Air

Oct 26 2015

A solitary bird

surfing the current of air,

body sleek

wings outstretched.

It leans ahead, pulls in

dipping into shallow dives.

Then feeling with its leading edge,

levitates

catching air.

Where, with a few brisk flicks

it seems to hover,

lift and speed and wind

exquisitely balanced,

gravity and mass

cancelling out.

A white gull

against blue sky.

Like a surfer, tanned and lithe

catching waves,

trimming, feathering, shifting weight

sussing-out the sweet spot.

Every move precise

muscle taut.

Gulls swarm, swagger, squawk,

gang-up on smaller birds

fight over garbage.

They stare me down

with hooked beaks, beady eyes,

batting their wings

and crow-hopping after me.

But this bird is beautiful,

elegantly riding the wind

on knife-edge wings.

As if purified

by clear blue sky,

elevated

by distance.

And the beauty of play, pure and simple,

cavorting with the breeze

mastering its game.

Until he leans

          catches a gust

                          and peels off,

flapping lazily

beyond my gaze.

A bit of a departure for me, playing around with the left margin, the geography of the page:  the words and the bird, flying off together!

I wondered whether to go with "it" or "he" in the last stanza. I like to avoid the default masculine. And technically, "it" is probably more accurate for a non-human creature. After all, "it" begins the 2nd stanza.

But I think by the end of the poem there is a familiarity with, and an admiration for this bird, that justifies personification: after observing long enough, it's time for me to replace "it" with "he". "It" just seemed disrespectful here. Unfortunately, English offers no gender neutral 3rd-person singular (unlike the plural "they"). And in the end, it was the conventional gender that won out (a disputable call, I know): I just felt that "he" calls back more strongly than "she" to the aggressive and threatening birds of the previous stanza.

I've had some unpleasant experiences with gulls, having been dive-bombed and intentionally bombarded. We had good reason to call them "shit-hawks"! They can also be beautiful, like their sleek black counterparts. Monochrome black and white: gulls and crows (or ravens, that other mischievous corvid), the two birds (other than pigeons) that have best adapted to cities and co-habitation with humans.