After my latest chemo session I saw a baby bird, almost naked, curled up, on the sidewalk. My husband, L., and his friend, R., was with us. L. said the kindest thing would be to kill it, but none of us could bring ourselves to stomp it to death. We hoped that the mother would somehow bring it food and save its life.
I was talking to S. the other day who told me there are baby grackles in his attic. The mother seems to feed them through slats, though she might also be able to slide herself into the nest through the slats. They are noisy but he's putting up with it and hopes soon they will fly from the nest, as will his son, who is looking for a job and an apartment.
Years ago I first saw the margins from sheet-fed printouts used in a bird's nest. Last week I saw plastic used in a nest. My friend J. has seen donkey and horse hair in nests. There is something so comforting to me about pictures and photos of nests. Because they are so familiar? Dry visible wombs? Because bird-brains build them and humans can, sort of, though we call it basket- weaving? There are artists who make nests, as if to show: We can do it, too. I bought a collection of prose poems a couple of years ago based on the cover drawing, which was of a nest.
When I was growing up, there was Spanish moss hanging on many of the trees, and they looked like nests. In Nicaragua I was translating an Adrienne Rich poem with my students and we came upon the word "moss," and I was thinking of Spanish moss, but realized later it was the short, dense green moss that grows on dirt.
In sixth grade one day our teacher had us bring in fake birds, the kind you don't see much of today, but did then. They were bird-size, made of something heavier than papier-mache, and had a few feathers on them. We attached them to the trees in the courtyard of the school building. She also had us plant coins in a pot to make a money tree. She believed in having us believe in magic, but we felt too old for such things. She also confiscated the ID bracelets of boys who had given them to girls they were going steady with.
She had us chant: Pop, pop, pop goes the popcorn in the pan. And, Edwin Markam's short poem, ending: "We drew a circle that took him in." Years later I went to see Visconti's Death in Venice, with J., whom I was in love with. He was bored by it so we left. Before leaving, I saw my sixth grade teacher. I think that was the last time I saw her.
At the Alliance Francaise last year I took a literature class, where we read Le Jour des Fourmis (Empire of the Ants in English). We discussed what animals build. The only animals that cause damage, the teacher said, are the human and the beaver. (Castor, in French.)
In junior high it seemed everyone had incubators for baby chicks. Why did we have them? For science. We would open up an egg every day or so to see the development. And then what? Did we throw out the not-formed-yet baby bird? And then a decade or two later we all had Salton yogurt makers that seemed oddly the same; you put the stuff in the plastic holes of a more- complicated-than-necessary contraption that was plugged in to stay warm. Except that we took the yogurt out all at the same time. And ate it.
This year we took our step-grandchild to the Museum of Science and Industry. My favorite part was the chick hatchery. It seemed oddly natural, non-corporate, compared to the glitz and bright lights and advertising of the other displays. Though I think it must have been advertising chickens or farming or eggs. Otherwise, why would it have been there?