Small Birds on An Overcast Day

One day I when I was much younger and had no names for things, I stood watering a bush that grew in the middle of my Bermuda grass "lawn."  I knew the yard was ugly, but I didn't know what to do about it.  Someone said, "Ignorance is bliss," but at that time in my life it wasn't bliss.  Ignorance felt like a cement wall:  blank, dull and heavy.  So, I stood on the lumpy unlovely lawn and hosed the bush.  The day was overcast, as dull as my ignorance, and had no beginning or end. At some point it wasn't night; the sun was lighting the low even clouds, but there was no sense of time passing.  The light was the same and cast no shadows. Eventually it would be not-day again.  

The bush was as inert and as graceless as the lawn, passive as it withstood the spray of hose water.  I wet it for a time and my mind wandered.  I felt listless and dulled by the hazy shaded sunlight, and I had no idea what I would do next.  I was in a self-pitying, lonesome mood, but I couldn't imagine how to change my situation and vaguely wondered how to become someone interesting or have an engaging, sparkling existence.  My mind was as dull as the day, perhaps depressed, uncertain of my future or its possibilities. 

I heard a faint, weak peeping sound in the yard beyond the now well-watered bush, a sound that barely registered in my bored ears. The tiny pips continued, and I gradually paid more attention to them.  A bit of movement, a nervous tiny twitching flutter piqued my interest finally.  The little noise became a tiny bird and then many birds, a moving restlessness with a high-pitched, multi-throated, giddy peeping sound.  These were small dun-colored birds that flew in little arcs of flight from grass, to low branch to higher branch, always jabbing at the ground or twigs like tiny mechanical toys.  Unlike hummingbirds that I'd seen whistling in a streak of fury from high in the air, these birds were truly pipsqueaks; they pipped and squeaked in a bustling, bouncing assembly that was loosely formed.  They moved in small rushes across spaces, keeping low to the ground usually, and they, as little mobs of children seem also, were the best of friends. They jostled and gossiped in their soft peeping language. 

I realized they were attracted to my one-bush rain forest, so I stood very still and let the water continue its arc, watched the tiny birds splash and peep-peep in a drop of water hanging from a leaf or stab another drop with their fine dark beak, drinking.  I envied their society and delight.  They were little downy fluffs of nothing but had heartbeats and some little bit of intention; they moved as a coalescence of energy bound up in tiny feathers.  I was spellbound and hoped they felt safe with me, the odd two-branched tree that held a hose. 

I felt a bit of magnanimity for providing water, giving them safe haven as they bathed and drank.  I played god, pretended that if it weren't for me, they would be thirsty, unable to find sustenance, perhaps waste away.  Yes, I was great, grand even, a wonderful human being.  Little birds had come to my feet and sipped of my water, found safe haven.  I wanted to possess them, know them like little friends and understand them.  They could each be no more than an ounce of energy and feathers, all told, and I could see that a puff of breeze would give them difficulty. 

With some tiny-bird signal, the whole busy flock scurried with a dipping, doodling quick flight, away into a tree in my neighbor's yard.  They never looked back, fluffs on  the day's breeze, unconcerned with my grand generosity. 

I was again alone on the lumpy lawn, holding my green garden hose and stared at the now empty bush.  The energy of the little gossiping peeping birds had left with them.  The sunlight was unchanged, neither bright nor warm, just light.  

"They're alive, and it seems impossible," I thought. "They flit and bustle, no more and no less.  And here I am, left behind, but they changed me."  I felt touched as if by magic, elevated by seeing tiny brown birds moving through space and time with a squeaking joy that had cast a spell, and I smiled in amazement.  Who had really played god after all.