Bones,Trash and Birds
My mother in California - just married
It was an aspect of her that I never knew as a child….
For the end of the year
A toeless pigeon comes to the windowsill each morning. It does not fly away, and I keep a respectful distance. We commune in the setting out of wild bird seed, quickly devoured. Suddenly twenty other birds descend, emerging from the bricks of buildings, and the crevices above the roof. Sometimes they push the bird away. She stays. She has survived whatever accident or illness tore away her toes. What remains is a hard hoof that balances well. I am thrlled providing sustenance away from the dangers of the street. It renders me useful. Last year in winter I poured hot water on thick ice. For the toeless bird ice is treacherous. I can try and also accept whatever will occur; to not create a tragedy of despair or self-centered helplessness in the face of difficulty.
I carry crumpled papers, dried food, and other trash to the garbage bin below the sill. When I push the lid up a clicking noise alerts the birds. They fly away, except my friend. She waits, hardened stump settled, tawny grey wings shimmering in the wind, and continues picking up the seeds.
On September 3rd my mother would have turned 100. I found a photograph of her in her twenties, recently married, leaning against a car hood in California, smiling at my father. It was an aspect of my mother that I never knew as a child.
A world war, genocide, the birth of a son, her husband changed from war, the loss of another child, and a stroke, transformed her. My mother was paralyzed on the left side. She wore a thick black shoe, her leg enclosed in a metal brace. She ,like the pigeon I attend to, balanced in ways I admire. She played the piano with one hand. But never smiled as she smiled in the picture I found. I stare at the photo as if it could speak. And it does - the way a flower speaks when suddenly it is truly seen, not through thoughts about the flower, but as itself in a pure sense -in language before words. I hear through the pores of my body how much love she was capable of and how much sorrow she never expected. It is this communication I remember at the window in the mornings at the sight of the bird ~ ~ my heart body opens.
This place is the place from where I tell stories. This year, I invested in exploring this way of telling. Because, what is transmitted from within the ephemeral architecture of image, word, and space, is that which holds together the invisible narrative – the story that reaches us, renews us, reminds us, even in times of excruciating violence and injustice, when the earth herself attempts to balance on the edge of extinction, feathers moving in the wind. My wish as the year comes to an end is to share this fierce remembering of a way of being, of telling, of spreading seeds of love.
