Lost in a forest of robins

[gurdonark]

I've been concerned that I don't get enough exercise during the weekdays, so I determined to go to the Spring Creek Forest Preserve down the street from my office to take a half an hour's walk during lunchtime. The woods were all hardwood, so the trees were bare and scraggly. But as I strolled along the trail, I saw dozens of robins--very orange/red breasted, very fat and well fed. They hopped, they flitted, they flew. It was like one of those Italian movies in which the robins symbolize something important, only, as when I view an Italian movie, I am never sure what the robins symbolize.

I remember when they put the metal "point" on the skyscraper in downtown Dallas a decade or more ago. The helicopter lowered this steeple-like point atop the tall building. It was just like in a Fellini film, but in fact it symbolized nothing more than perhaps a bit of corporate and architectural excess.

I tend to see life as metaphor, but so often the metaphor eludes me, and all I have before me is an image that it passes so quickly, and there is so much I do not understand.

Comments

[kenmora.livejournal.com]

Once when I was in my first year of Jr. College I was walking home when out of the corner of my eye I spied a clump of Ivy "twitching."
I stopped and surveyed the Ivy, and it happened again. I could have ignored it but I was compelled to investigate. I bent over the twitching patch, which could have held a snake for all I knew, and it twitched again. I jumped, but not before I saw it was a starling, but what was it doing in the Ivy?
I bent down to investigate, gingerly moved a leaf of Ivy and saw the starling on his back. Around one leg was a tight coil of fishing line.
I tenderly picked up the bird, and followed the line to find it tied to a stick. Just then someone passed, a girl, and I said "say, have you got a pair of scissors?" she didn't. I knew there was a bicycle shop just two blocks down. Surely there would be something to free this little bird.
It must have been in shock because it didn't move at all until the bike shop was just a few paces away. Then it started to move its head around, and before I knew it, it sprang free from my gentle grasp and flew into the street. The stick with the fishing line dragged behind it and it could not fly higher than two feet off the ground.
The little black starling was struck by an old white Ford Falcon. I was hit as well, by a feeling akin to what someone experiencing a Revelation must feel. I stood frozen, not comprehending for a moment. I could not help but feel this was a portentous event. But what could it portend?

[kelquestor.livejournal.com]

Well written. Thought-provoking. Here, starlings are an introduced pest. I would describe myself as a compassionate person who cares about animals, but in the case of the starling I think it was the lesser of two evils it was killed outright rather than that it flew free?

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Starlings are invaders in most of here (maybe all of here, I think they're Euro), but I still like 'em. I think the starling should have lived!

[kenmora.livejournal.com]

That was my hope, but alas there was an unbridgeable gap between the creature whose every reflex was bent on self-preservation. When it awoke in the grip of a creature whose intent, not matter how altruistic, could not be discerned, he did what he could not help but do. Yet my act of even daring to aid him was completely elective, and so I was left mourning the fatalism of the starling, and the paradox of the well meaning altruist and the uncaring Falcon each having a hand in the fate of bound and unknowing bird.

[kenmora.livejournal.com]

At the time I was ignorant of any history of the bird, other than it was common. I struggled over whether to try to help or not. Not because I was able to and could not, but because it would put me in an awkward position, of walking down the street with a bird in my hand, intent unclear to any who would see me (as unclear as the birds own understanding).

However, ever since then I am rarely anywhere (and never voluntarily) without my swiss army knife.

[kelquestor.livejournal.com]

It interests me that you would be concerned about appearances to that degree, although of course I realise you are a visual person. I just didn't think considerations of how you might look to others would be a factor in your deciding to follow your heart or not. But then, you were only young, and we all care too much about that stuff at certain ages, don't we?

I bet that swiss army knife has proved its worth since? My Dad always carries a pocket knife too, although I think current laws could forbid it. I fondly recall many occasions when he's fished it out of his pocket and put it to good use.

[kenmora.livejournal.com]

Actually it was an age thing. Right now appearances wouldn't matter, but then it was the conceit/paranoia of youth that worried how others might perceive me. Of course now I'd have my knife with me so it wouldn't be a problem.

Finally, I don't believe it is illegal to carry a blade under 4.5 inches long (at least for the time being). In fact when I was in high school you could bring one to school with you, I'm sure that's not the case now. And it has come in handy on innumerable occasions.

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

It was like one of those Italian movies in which the robins symbolize something important only, as when I view an Italian movie, I am never sure what the robins symbolize.

I've seen that movie too! Hah!

Thanks for the laugh.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

On art film night, I'm sure I saw more films and understood fewer of them than the average viewer.

"But what does it mean?"

[kelquestor.livejournal.com]

What does it all mean?

I enjoyed this post, Robert, thank you. The robins sound gorgeous. And I love the way you describe that human search for meaning, even when meaning possibly isn't there...

It reminds me of lots of things - an ICQ conversation I had last night about people constantly on the peripheral of my life ("Why are they there?"); how I discovered that those texts interpreting novels and poems don't necessarily have anything to do with the intentions of the author; how you can listen to a song several times, fairly indifferently,then all of a sudden it hits you directly, it speaks to your heart...

I believe there are levels of meaning in most things. I like my poetry to be able to be accessed at, or interpreted on, at least a couple of different levels - as a factual account and as a metaphor, say. (One has no guarantee other meaning is not present for other people, or that they don't 'get' anything at all). I think I might believe that we cannot always access all levels of meaning because we are not 'ready' for them, the time is not right for us to 'know'. Or perhaps we do not want to know, subconsciously. Hence 'negative capability'?

Re: "But what does it mean?"

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much for the comment. Although in this post I question the inference of "meaning", I think that the search for metaphor and meaning is really human and essential and really wonderful--whether it is "really" there or not; and what is "really" in this context, anyway? :)

[wig.livejournal.com]

Hiya, I have added your journal to my 'friends' list because I love this post!

Bye for now :)

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Why, thank you! Welcome! I've reciprocated. :)