I was sitting at a picnic table outside Juanita's Taco Shop in Encinitas, having a carne asada burrito. I was just eating and reading when I saw a female Brewer's blackbird flutter around my feet. She was just hopping here and there snatching up little pieces of grass and twigs with her beak. Some, she held for a few seconds then rejected, others she dragged over to a little pile. She was preparing a nest, I guess.
People walked by from time to time and the traffic at the nearby intersection just clamored; so hectic and hurried and oblivious. And still there foraging was this mama blackbird, not afraid of me or anyone else. She had things to do.
As I watched the delicate animal do her work, I sensed such power in that little moment. I recalled passages in the Bible when Jesus spoke about how we fret and stress about things; that if God provides for the little birds, how much more will he provide for us.
I realized, that for a moment, I was oblivious, too. I had disregarded everything else; cars, asphalt, people, noise and focused on the bird. Soon, other blackbirds had joined her and then, all at once, they flashed away to a nearby power line to congregate with the rest of the flock.
This world would be so much easier to handle if we all just took some time and watched birds.
Ben
A new site
12 years ago
3 comments:
This world would be so much easier to handle if we all just took some time and watched birds.
ya, i agree. instead of continually staring at all the things that dont matter, and thinking about the things that we cant change, we often overlook all the things that are happening all around us.
i hopped over to your blog from ryan's... and i agree. there's so much in the world that we miss b/c we're so busy doing so many things at once (the big drawback to multi-tasking). it would be so nice if we could all just stop sometimes and enjoy those small, natural things.
that's part of the reason why i love the american transcendentalists so much- they encourage that type of just stopping. a lyric moment i guess.
it reminds me of a dickinson poem (and, if you ever hop on over to my blog, you'll see that EVERYTHING reminds me of a Dickinson poem b/c i am a dickinson-geek):
A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.
And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.
He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,--
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head
Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home
Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, splashless, as they swim.
How Poetry Comes to Me
It comes blundering over the
boulders at night, it stays
frightened outside the
range of my campfire
I go to meet it at the
edge of the light
Gary Snyder
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