BIRD SONG

And now a bed time story for my beloved sister Cristina.

As requested, for my sister Cristina, child of Christ savior, Christ who was murdered by the sins of humanity. To die for our sins was to forgive us all of our sins. The atomic bomb died proving its existence, ceasing the suffering of a suffering humanity. Painted white walls of ghost carcasses, ringing silence bursting open in the mist of a fiery craze. Dogs barking away the furnace, children staring into the human sun, blistering from the experience, withering dust. Erasing our sins Christ and the atomic bomb. Liberating souls with benevolent maledictions, blessings all, the bomb would not burst if you were not in sin, no furnace can be nurtured by the sacred, no more crosses to bear except for the electric chair.

I woke up one autumn morning into the flagrant exposition of falls maddening and ravaging colors, paling leaves preparing to spend the winter underground, hasten to fall so as to avoid the ferocious winter of the northern plains. The wooden window frame creaking, cracking the cries of evaporating fat fibers; my eyes reach beyond that yellow, red, rusty orange brown mist of fall, into the ledge where bird lay dead. Bird’s transgression through the ether halted by the advantage of being able to see through glass. Broken avian neck, snapped, could not have felt his death, a chorus trounces my every thought, was he flying into the melody of his beloved? A melody that cried that she would love him until the day after forever; it was now two days after forever. He was perched dead there now from two suns ago and no moons have shone darkness upon his amorous soul.

I ponder the possibility of rescuing bird, there his body stares at me, dead on the ledge, plumage no longer being replaced, mangled head, broken neck, bleeding halted by the cold of night, by the cold of heart, disoriented by his lover’s call to forever, painted night in red. Two days after forever, death.

I procrastinate the rescue attempt, breakfast first; buttered croissant, I taste it but the dry saliva rolling in my mouth is not enough to overcome the plastic enhancement of a croissant, as interpreted by these colonists; I consume it just to commemorate lascivious croissants buttered to perdition in the old world. Coffee rushes in to save me from realizing the specter pastry. No sugar, sugar kills the flavor of coffee, and adulterates the effects of the caffeine upon my circulation, both in me body would try to kill each other, no sugar in my hardy dark roast, bird waits, I add a touch of milk, toned down purist that is me.

I hear singing birds and wander, is her lonely voice among them or has she rushed to find another lover? A song of grief and a song of love, impossible to discern. Wings crumbled, forgotten unison, it is a life to die I tell myself, and remove my underwear on the way into a cold shower. The electricity bill was spent on coffee and croissants, sustenance, carrying the responsibility of four generations, messages delivered by strangers, they turned the lights off, they left on those thousand candles that is sun.

When I was a child I used to love taking a shower, I have never understood why every dog I have had, has fought so hard against a bath; I think maybe it is because they are being washed by their master, but I think to myself, how wonderful to be washed by another, to have someone washing my dangling body, running their fingers through my hair, sweet shampoo, soap bubbles sponged into my flesh, massage my weary cranium, keep the water warm, wash me, yes, and please make sure that you cleanse my ass; why don’t my dogs enjoy all that? These days I don’t really enjoy bathing myself, when I was a child the water from our shower would run like torrents from a waterfall, water shortages have changed all that, now more air bubbles than water bubbles fall from my shower. I step into the cold wooden floor, wet feet planted there, generations from now, discerning tenants will notice the humid foot, traced and edged into the wood, by my warm foot branding burning wood.

I don’t know what day of the week it is, but I know that it is a day that I have to look for a job, everyday now is dedicated for that. And now I have the responsibility of that bird, which will make it all that more daunting to search for my daily bread. Thump! he slammed into the glass, where once he flew…

Towels that do not hold a lot of water are bothersome, I reach for a candle so I can shave these whiskers that perforate me flesh; jealous of Indians that don’t grow beards, seems more evolved to me; evolution notes that our ancestors were hairier, even a mammoth had more hair than we do today, my scalp is evolving so fast that it is rushing into boldness, the defeated Indians must be more evolved; in the future everyone will be born without hair, pubic hair, gone, a head of hair, gone, a leg of hair, gone, horses will lose their tails, gorillas are more hair than they are gorillas so they will perish all, European women will have to search for a fashionable oddity to substitute hairy armpits, doomed too; men who try to lose weight by growing a beard will not be able to, terrorist that grow a beard to hide their character will not be able to, and anyone suffering nostalgia will have to wear a wig or a false beard, and everyone will know it. In the future everyone will go bald just like me, I am just forward of the evolutionary curve, beyond my time, hair loss prejudice is not a long term thing. I have razorblade scars under my chin, as if a knife had been pushed through me from below the earth, rammed straight up, like a man hanging from an arrow lined fence, body dangling from an arrowhead, rain and night pouring down the flag.

I know, I know, don’t rush me, I don’t like to be rushed. I can only do one thing in a day, more than that is more than I can handled, but I will take care of bird, I promise. It’s 10:34am and I am still here, gotta get some more candles, I will stop by the church. I like candles, no one has said that they cause cancer, but they are carcinogenic, friendly smoke I call it, friendly fire, candles smoke themselves to death.

I walk out into the autumn day, blistering prism hastily expounding brilliance into my eyes, never have I seen so much blinding beauty as that lavished by agonizing fall. Daring in its brilliance, a plumage of inspiration, rushing in the nakedness, to survive the winter, a trunk must rest alone. Torsos coming bare, torsos soon to dare sun to shine on them alone. The leaves that shaded the trunk from the blistering summer heat, now sacrificed.

I enter a cafe, sure I should be searching for a job; more than coffee I need a drink, poverty cures alcoholism in a bad way, my desires are exposed to grotesque denial, surrender to reality, surrender to reality my heart tells me, I take my seat; unusually at the mid center area of the café, unusual for me, I am paranoid about having my back unprotected or exposed to moving unknowns from behind my shadow. Disperse, disperse I feel you are all insane. I think of my dead bird, he did not care about what was behind him, it would have been safer to have that window behind him, all around we are not safe, paranoid schizophrenic I am not, which is why today I sit almost at the dead center of this café, risking exposure to all, from every angle, but somehow I feel I have witnessed enough tragedy so as not to be exposed to more, tragedy is a loner, it does not roam like a pack of wolves, tragedy is rare I tell myself, tragedy is in danger of extinction. I feel safe now.

A song resonates in my coffee, splash, a combination of big band tunes, singing: …carrying, marrying my love…, dead bird is not going to marry anyone else. I think of all the birds that must have died in the Spanish civil war, not many I think, maybe even none, I ponder how many died in the American civil war; you see occasionally there was break from brother killing brother, and there resting on the ground, having a rifle in hand, a bored Union soldier would see a bird and shoot it dead. His fellow soldiers would cascade in laughter: damn good shot that boy! Old wars were indifferent to birds until the atomic bomb, I don’t know if anyone has counted how many birds took the option of death in that one; I picture the pilots of the B-29 bomber just turning that baby around and heading for home, they still had a home, but a lot of other non metallic birds died to end that war.

The war did not end for the birds because the war was the birth of much technological innovation, new and miraculous way to make steel were developed to fight the war, and when the war was over a peaceful use had to be found for all that new steel, and so skyscrapers rose from the ashes of the war to colonize a new world. The wind had been an obstacle to tall buildings, even an obstacle to birds and planes, but the new steel was flexible, buildings that can sway and shake are more solid, new steel fresh from the war. Tall magnificence rising like an immortal earth god invading the heavens with radiance and splendor, the skyscrapers sparked city nights. Architectural brilliance mirrored the outer layer of the building so that blinding radiance could be had by day.

I don’t know how many birds died in Hiroshima, I don’t know how many birds knew their death was on the verge of rising into their existence, birds know things, they know that an earthquake is near, they know when a storm is rising, and they know where on earth thy are, better than we know where on earth we are. I presume the birds knew that something strange was happening to the atom and the atom is not very tolerant, I think they knew, but I don’t think they had the mathematics that the bomber pilots had to get away. If you fly in this direction, and at this altitude, and at this precise velocity, you will never feel the atom cracking.

I visited Hiroshima once, not a pilgrimage to Mecca, there I stood in the presence of point zero, a dome finished with wire so that the imagination can illustrate what it may have looked like before the decapitating explosion. That day I thought of the birds that nested in that building and I promised myself that, should I reincarnate as a bird, I would avoid civilization, better to risk my neck with the owls in the forest.

After Hiroshima people continued to die from wars, and birds continue to die because of their proximity to me. I am the unemployed inhabitant of a huge city, a marble of concrete and steel, and here in our city, a bird in flight, suddenly notices at a distance, another bird flying in his path, towards him, and so he lowers one wing and raises the other so as to outflank the opposing bird, but with split second precision the other bird reverses imitation of that action, opposite wing up, opposite wing lower, and again aligns with astounding precision upon a new converging path, our bird seeing the increasing size of the advancing avian figure reflexively makes an immediate dive, dive, but peering upwards with his bulging eyes he is again confronted by an opponent diving with identical precision; never has he witnessed such a talented flyer, at once impressed but more fearing the impeding collision, our bird hastens, aiming to ascend with a darting left, but then it is late, and he meets the graceful flyer as himself, snap, a long ungraceful spiraling fall follows him to ascend no more.

I make it back and manage to drag myself to what has now become more of my mandated duty than a desire of my own choosing. I have done all to avoid the ugliness of this moment, but it is so close to home that I can not ignore it. I put on my bright yellow plastic gloves, gloves that I use to wash the dirty dishes, grab a brown paper bag, and my procession begins towards those small round eyes that have not ceased from staring at me all day. A thousand birds singing now but one dead drowns them all.

Pleasant dreams.