It's taken me some time but I wanted to share the story of the Robin family. It started in mid to late June when I had a Robin that would come and tap on my patio door window...at first I thought it was just because of it's own reflection...but the bird would go up toward the top of the door as if it was seeking a bug or two...the attacks were always mild...mild compared to the Mockingbird I had do this a few years back...I thought that bird was actually going to break the glass...the window attacks stopped for about a week or so and then they started up again...that's when I noticed...
The beginnings of a nest...I watched as two birds helped to build a nest and occasionally would do a short attack sequence...I then noticed the one bird staying on the nest more and realized there were eggs in the nest...it wasn't long before I realized the pair was starting to fly back and forth more and more with insects in their mouths...and the start of a lovely family was born...and it wasn't long before I could see the little mouths poking up out of the top of the nest...
I watched for days as the two parents continued with the upmost dedication to their young...feeding and primping the little ones...it wasn't long before I could tell there was three little ones...after about five days the birds started raising higher out of the nest and primping their feathers and flapping their little wings...I actually thought they would leave the nest one evening and brought out my camera hoping to catch the action...but was disappointed...even after Mom or Dad tried to call them out...they just were not ready yet...
Well the next morning I watched and was surprised that the Mom and Dad were bringing food to the young...have they given up on getting them out of the nest...this is what I pondered...and so I recorded...about mid morning I looked up and found one was hanging outside of the nest...so I grabbed my camera...while the actual flight is not in the video...you can see the bird one moment and then the next moment there is only two birds left...upon later review of the video I realized Mom and Dad were not feeding the birds at all...but would come over more or less checking up on the birds...perhaps letting them know that they had empty mouths...so the young birds realized that they had to start fending for themselves...
I watched for a couple of other hours...this was around the time of Michael Jackson's passing...and I was watching a lot of news coverage on it..you can even hear some of this on the videos...around mid afternoon there was still two birds in the nest..I left for a while and came back to see only one bird was left in the nest...I missed the the second one taking off...
I watched as the last one was definitely trying to assess his own situation...in the meantime I got a call from my Wife to meet her for our occasional Friday evening meal...while I was getting ready I could tell the last little Robin was definitely getting ready to make that jump...so I grabbed my camera and went to take a video...but the battery ran out...so I quickly changed the batteries looked up just in time to watch the last one take off for the bushes in the back of my yard...dab nabbit I missed getting video of it...
I felt a loss...as my daily entertainment is now gone...at least for this Spring.....
Birdman Blue
There it is...the Garden....where in late February the Daffodils grace the last snow...and then pops the tulips and wave of blue from the hyacinths....then the dahlias...and the gladiolas...to the bees balm...and the hydrangeas...topped with the dancing of the marigolds...and the crape myrtles....
All growing season long I pull the weeds...and I mulch...and I treat the soil...I fertilize...and I mulch...and I water and watch as it all changes...
But while I strive to have the most aesthetic and perfect garden...because it's a garden of remembrance for those I have loved who have now passed...it inspires me in the cool of the morning and the cool of the evening...I love the fireflies who dance among my work...no matter how much I try to make it perfect...I always leave one weed...
Why...you may say...because it reminds me I am not living in a perfect world...the weed reminds me that no matter how much I try to make it better...there is still the weed...it also lets me know that there is a perfect place with no weeds...
So I leave one weed to Remind me...
And I am that Weed...
Birdman Blue
This morning I am in repose as I consider this anomaly...the late Michael Jackson...
We were both born in the same year...and I can remember as a kid with my friends...doing little dance skits and singing "The Jackson Five" songs...
When I joined the Army and couldn't wait to turn 21 so I could actually be admitted to Disco joints...I played the "Off the Wall" album so much I bought three more of them...some young people may not know but we had a vinyl disc that made physical contact with a vibrating needle...the needle eventually wore the vinyl down...
I actually wore white socks with short pants and white tipped wing tips...never wore the white glove...cause I thought that was silly...but likened my dancing prowess much like Michael's...I actually won some dance contests doing some of Michael's moves mixed in with my own...
I have to admit...I never could moonwalk...no matter how hard I tried...or someone tried to teach me...the title "moonwalk" was a testament to our time of space travel and moon exploration...
I must admit that when he started changing...I started to lean away from Michael...I always was embarrassed by it as though it was part of me...
Michael and the eccentricities kind of turned me away...I would tell people I used to know Michael when he was "Black"...
I never knew what to think of the children issue...but I really think that Michael in adult life when he started to get his own power in his life...wanted to go back to his childhood and was kind of seeking to grab those days back...I now think he was misunderstood on these issues and definitely not a "Child Molester"...that's just my feel on the issue...
I just find it hard to believe a man would actually build a world of fantasy and live in it...to facilitate a sick fascination with children...he was trying to create a world he never knew as a kid...his "Dad" has to live the rest of his life trying to deal with how he helped to screw this kid up...
The talent and energy of Michael will never be forgotten...he will have a status in legend much like Elvis Presley...
I grew up in a household that my Dad encouraged racism...but the Motown sounds pierced into that world...and "The Jackson Five" with Michael at the helm...was a big part of that...I imagine this was the knife that pierced into a lot of similar lives...there was an innocence to the boy that sang, "ABC" and "123"....
Michael I will miss you...the memory of you..the realization that you have passed at pretty much the same age as I...brings a stark realization to the parallel of life we have shared...
It may sound strange...but I feel like a part of me passed yesterday at the time Michael left....
Blue
I used to be filled with a lot of hot air, the day before her birthday, then I would blow up a couple of hundred balloons and surprise her on the morning of her birthday. The first birthday I shared with her...I sprayed her with a confetti of different symbols I had purchased at a local party discount store...for years she kept parts of this confetti and may still have some around...then she saw the balloons. There was a simple joy in all of this...but I lost it somewhere in the last few years....
Robins are growing outside my deck windows...a big flowering crabapple tree has played host to a nest with three little Robins whom have grown rapidly...they are about a week old and I expect them to take their first flight soon....they just opened up their eyes yesterday...
The parents have frantically gone out and gathered food...sometimes they arrive at the nest together...one has a distinctive look before it flies off...I can only assume it is taking note of who has just been fed...but it almost looks like the bird is taking a moment and saying to itself what a beautiful family I have and they are growing up so fast...soon they will take the young out and show them how to fend for themselves...and I will be left with an empty nest outside to remind me of the little Robin family that was once there...
I grow older each day as most of us do...well actually all of us do...sometimes sadness comes over me...as I ponder what it might have been like to have had children...it's a part of life I really feel I missed out on...although it's hard to say that I might have done the right things...and it may be for the best...
I am deeply saddened when I watch a young woman die for peacefully demonstrating for a basic human right...her eyes told the whole story right before she passed...17 years of life flashed before her eyes...people live and die everyday...by all sorts of means...but this reminds me of something when I was younger and some Olympians were killed...I was 16 or 17 at the time...
So another day dawns...it's nice and cooler today...it's going to be hot but the humidity is low...a day to be enjoyed...I have a truck that has a dead battery...I have two birdhouse kits to build...well actually one is going to be a mailbox...but that's a story unto itself...I need to get some plants in the ground...way too late...mow the lawn...and too be honest with you...I just want to lay down...and sleep....
I need life force...and I have every reason to have it...it's like the time when I was a child and it was Christmas...my Dad played one of his usual tricks on me and made me think I was getting a brick for Christmas...then pulled out a Guitar and an Amp...something I wanted and was excited to get...but then I just started crying...confusing everyone and angering my Dad...I don't know why even to this day I felt like I did that day....and I don't know why I feel like I do today and a lot of days like I do...I just know I do...
As I write this the baby Robins are active and one of the parents just fed them...there is force in that life..and sometimes I think that is what keeps me going more than anything else...
Birdman Blue
Yes, I have found the well worn medium sized spiral notebook that I have been looking for...this little notebook contains poems and prose written in my staggered kind of way...
I wrote most of these poems like a journal...of course the greatness was always evident in them...at least the greatness from my perspective...hahahahaha...which makes them richer for me now...as I consider how much I have lost over the last 30 years of my life...and how the Good Lord has allowed this reminder of me to stick around...
I titled this...."Dreams of Reality"....I grew up in the 60's and space exploration and travel were highly fascinating to me...I never really felt comfortable here on this globe we call Earth...so while living in reality...I pondered it like a dream...
I have met some people who hardly ever dream or recall them...some of my dreams seem so real...I seem so active as a participant...the haunting comes from them when waking up and realizing sometimes that what I just dreamed wasn't really real...yet there is a part of me that wonders...
My Wife recently bought a set of DVD's from Star Trek at a local Best Buy...the theme of the set was..."Alternate Reality"...and they had some from the original Star Trek series to some of the latest...we marveled at one from 1967 and how much what the Star Trek set suggested as technology...has now become real and in some cases even old in itself....some of my dreams seem like this...is that me in an alternate reality...sometimes I wished I was there..other times I am glad I am not...
I actually at one time transcribed this book of poems I had written onto a little word processor I had back in the 90's on a floppy...but I can't find the floppy disk...not even sure I have a computer by which to use the floppy if I did..hahahahaha...
I think now I want to share this young, naive, spirited young man with the world...I am considering writing this just as it is...there are some writings that are so bad they stick out like a sore thumb...but to share it would make it even more real...no one ever got rid of acne by just covering it up...
I was seeking myself...trying to find a reality...I'm not even sure I ever found it...hence the title..."Dreams of Reality"....
Imagine a young man...in the U.S. Army...living in old WWI and WWII wooden army barracks...they transformed them with about 6 rooms on each floor...I lived next to the stairwell in a fairly good sized room...right across from the showers and latrines...I heard when anyone came in and left...you could tell when someone was walking down the hall or down the stairs...you could hear almost any conversation throughout the place...each person had a stereo and would blast their music...a contention amoung us all...it was how you expressed who you were...or what you wanted others to think you were...one phone was available to the whole barracks...and you depended on others to share it with you...it wasn't always easy and it caused some problems...but amazingly...you understood that if you answered and got your buddy...more than likely he would do the same for you...it was a world only another soldier could probably relate too...
I am thinking of sharing this writing with the original pages scanned and then have the type next to it...
I need to dedicate this one to my Mom...who went home last October to be with the Lord...and the greatest gift I have now in my Wife Bren...
Dreams of Reality....I'm not sure the poems have ever stopped...it's just that they haven't been written down in this way in over 30 years....
Birdman Blue
This is the reason I leave some wildflowers up in my garden even though it does not fit the theme...here are a couple of American Goldfinches enjoying the flowerheads...you can see how they are meticulously gathering seed from the flowers...the one Goldfinch was actually eating part of the flowers....
It looked like he was doing a thing we used to do as kids...pluck a petal...and say "she loves me"...pluck another and say "she loves me not"...until we got to the last petal...
Now we know where we got that from....hahahahahahahahaha....Birdman Blue
