This week’s post contains another feather poem, but this one differs greatly from the metaphor-laden verses of the 12 March poem, “The Feather is the Thing.” Today’s offering stays grounded (small pun!) in the very real world of nature and some of its avian creatures.
One line in this poem also gives us the second appearance of Odin and his Ravens. Why? This poet doesn’t really know, except she has always had an affinity with Ravens – not so much with Odin. In fact, in my younger days, a diviner declared that Raven was my totem. I could do worse. But I digress.
Obviously, the central theme of this poem is birds’ migration, as well as the fact of non-migration. In researching, I discovered that not all migrating birds fly south for their change of scenery. Some, like the Blue Heron, actually fly north or stay in the same climate all year round. Still other like the opportunistic Canada Goose hang out just about anywhere food availability exists. Things can get directionally gnarly when one stops to think that those that migrate south eventually turn 180 degrees or so and fly back north. Truth be known, various types and configurations crisscross each other for a large part of the year. Perhaps the reason many of us think of migration as southbound has something to do with our personal preference to be in the warmth during the winter months. Next on the radar (ouch! Another tiny pun) we find other birds that do not migrate as far as they used to, like the Canada Goose. Climate change strikes again as the cause.
And now, to the poem’s title. “Feathers” is a no-brainer, right? But what about this almost-foreign word, “impermanence?” In Buddhism, impermanence represents a key topic and belief. Basically, it means that everything and everyone changes all the time – every minute – every second. Nothing stays the same. Causes and conditions converge to create experiences and perspectives. Nothing stays the same which for some raises anxiety. But think about it. Does one thing exist that does not change, and in most cases, die? Voila! Impermanence. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, “It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not.” One of the explorations below, suggests investigating this concept.
Feathers of Impermanence
One careless deer lies on the roadside’s dry autumn grassA few Eagles and Ravens jab her hide with thick-billed beaks
An autumn wind ruffles feathers as they feast on impermanence itself
These four-season carnivores scavenge the remainders of fast vehicles
Colliding with too-solid life
Seemingly overnight the air defers to winter
Temps begin to drop
Air chills and thin ice forms
Yet the Eagles and the Ravens, and hearty smaller birds stay
the winds buffeting their feathers as they go on feasting
Gone long before, feathered nomad tribes quit nests, nudge fall-free fledglings to pilot fallen-open skies
Canada geese stretch ash-gray wings
arrowing in a hundred vees
thick with honks that croak singularity
No voice on Earth can divert their headlong flight
nor dissuade the wingbeat’s timing of their hearts.
Great Blue Herons unfurl slate-gray sails wing-on-wing
smaller convoys track the sun
crests blown back against the northern snows
No shape or shadow can discourage rasping calls or their
undivided migration nor stop the cadence of blue airs
Wild Swans in purest plumage trumpet in hundreds
their shimmering austral passage
an exodus of avian monks in snowy robes
streaming out of cloisters of La Grande Chartreuse
as if god had finally told the truth
Always leaving and endlessly arriving – and their few confrères –
rogues who stay behind amid the winter barrens
in the Great Whiteness where clouds float on evergreen
the few clear-hearted ones that can bear unbroken suchness
and who know wisdom in their native wings
The prescient Ravens know it all – ‘tis the origin of why they laugh
Ever watchful for a stake, they parlay with wolves and make their pacts
This is why Great Odin kept two Ravens perched and watching
from his thunderous shoulders – flying out and back
These precocious Ravens
unafraid of Eagles because secrets whistling through their pinions
enchant and whisper the certainty of their void-black opinions
that is, to have the sense to cackle and the wit to play
to taunt grounded dogs who run every time to catch them
as if suddenly north was south and hounds could fly away
Background:
If you read last week’s post with its poem, “Ghost Flyers,” it should be clear that I have “a thing” for flight. The above poem contains another peon to flight. This time nature, rather than the aircraft of “Ghost Flyers,” plays center stage. Growing up on the prairies, I thrilled to the songs of meadowlarks and red-winged black birds. Then they seemed to disappear. Happily, however, when we moved to Beltrami Island State Forest in 1999, a whole new population of songsters and chirpers greeted me. And of course, the migrations of thousands of swans, geese, and many other birds, with their vees, clusters, and other configurations. That’s it: a simple enjoyment of those who can fly. Hopefully, you, too, will enjoy taking wing.
Exploration 1: How do you feel when you see birds migrating? A longing to fly with them? A sense of a season’s change? Attunement with nature? Something else?
Exploration 2: Is there any similarity between Ravens who not only survive, but enjoy and breed in winter, and us northern folk?
Exploration 3: If you have the resources to migrate to a warm climate, or know others who do, does this mean those who stay are stronger and more stable?
Exploration 4: What opinions might Ravens hold?
Exploration 5: Do you believe that everyone and everything is impermanent? If so, what implications does this have for your life? Likewise, what effects arise if you do not believe in it?
Jack Pine Savage
Comments
Post a Comment