Happiness is a Warm Bug...

Dear Maria,

To take my mind off a history of world slavery that I just finished reading—I know, I know—I thought I’d dash off a quick letter. Next up is the Strycker book on birds, which surely ought to serve as a much more pleasant counterpoint to hundreds of stories of such vile human degradation—too appalling to fathom, but as it turns out, not for words.

Saturday morning, while at my summer mornings’ perch in the living room, I saw the first of the sun’s light touch the upper reaches of a pine that stands behind my neighbor’s house across the street. As I watched the show, a hawk landed on a branch near the top and spread its wings out to catch some warmth. We had a violent downpour around two o’clock that morning, and so the bird needed a drying out most likely. Really was quite a sight, the hawk’s wings brightly detailed against the pale morning sky—stunning.

Of course, the tranquil scene had to be interrupted by violence. I saw a streak come down into my front yard out by the rescue elm, and before I could get out of my recliner, the bird shot back up into my neighbor’s pine of a thousand cones that never drop. I stood close to the window, and down again came the predator to nail some sort of cricket or grasshopper out in the grass. She took the bug in her mouth and zoomed back again to the pine.

No, the hawk was still across the way, sunning itself as if awaiting a photographer from National Geographic. No, the predator this time was a female bluebird. While I spied a hawk, a bluebird made the kill. Surely, there is a deep lesson in this scene worth pondering.

We raise our eyes to the majestic heavens, and the sturm und drang of daily affairs churns on mercilessly at our feet.

Perhaps the bluebird does not bring us happiness but rather makes itself happy. As I have reported before, its territorial feathers are easily ruffled. Of course, I am complicit in the violence as I would rather the bluebird live to fly another day, and as for the cricket or grasshopper, alas, the food chain is a merciless taskmaster.

Dominance and subjugation. I’ve read enough of that subject to last forever. A few days with The Thing With Feathers may boost my morale.

Be well. I am sure the World Cup will torture us all, or those of us who choose to follow the games. Games. Later.

Always, srk