Freedom of the Wing

 In that hour, when night is calmest, Sang he from the Hebrew Psalmist,  in a voice so sweet and clear. That I could not choose but hear.--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I've several bird feeders outside my dining room window, each holding different types of seeds for various birds, a suet holder or two, and a birdbath filled with fresh water twice a day in the summer. I enjoy watching and listening to them while having my coffee in the morning.

Most of the birds that I easily recognize are the sparrows, my favorite, the Cardinal, and the occasional dove. There are ways to tell birds apart other than by looks or color. You can study what they eat and, of course, what they won't eat, by whether they sleep high up or snuggled down safe in a low covering, and by whether they eat more in the morning or at night. By the shape and size of the nest, if there is one. By their connection to the nearest body of water, if one exists, and to what degree that close body of water is necessary, to some of us, more essential than anything we could ever realize. 

Birds are meant to fly free, not be caged in. I've had a couple of parakeets over the years, but I always felt a twinge of guilt for keeping them locked up, even in a large cage. After my last two, I said "no more" and changed my mind about getting another when I moved. When you hold a bird in your hand, it closes its eyes in resignation. Trust. Or fear?

I once had a neighbor in the country who kept a quail in a cage just so he could hear the "bobwhite" of its call. I'd watch the bird in there, reminding me of a prisoner in a small cell in a prison camp, sending out small Morse code signals in hopes of someone hearing him and rescuing him. But no one came to rescue him, and I could only think of him growing old and dying there in that tiny cage, his prison cell, his will deflating, his spirit becoming drab as his prison uniform over time. I don't believe the man did it to be cruel; he simply thought, like others, that he could take a wild thing in and tame it, that it would only require the creature to make an adjustment in its lifestyle, to shift the center of its desire from one thing to another. 

One day, while the neighbor was away, I went over and quietly opened the cage door. The bird was gone in a flash, with the urgency born of imprisoned spring and the awakening of burgeoning truth; to itself, the sun and the wind, not the man who caged it.

The air is smoky this morning, the remnants of someone burning off some brush after we had a good soaking rain first. From the smoke, the birds escape up into the clear sky, up from the dense remains of green into the veined complexity of sky, where space and freedom interface. From aloft, they spot my feeder, simply looking for some shelter and some food, while keeping the freedom of their wing.

For isn't that what we all desire?