Support Kidzlitcobhouse

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Ode to Hummingbirds

The whole forest was on fire, but her wings weren't streamlined for swift escape flights.

She struggled against her own limitations.

When the water's cool extinguished the unbearable heat, she thought she made it. ... until the panic shook her heart once again. Water pressure kept her suspended in the middle of the blue fluid, half way between the surface and the bottom before a sudden but timely, turbulent, current snatched her and pulled her up.

Gasping for air, she was alive - the one who could neither fly fast in the air not breathe in the water.

With her eyes closed and plumage looking soaked on the body still unconscious, her beak opened up, and a song so swollen spilled out from her little chest. The Songbird's melody echoed amongst steep barren rocks until it was swallowed by the roar of a waterfall.

She woke up terrified. Her wings were frozen. Was she alone in this world she could not recognize?

Songbird remained in that same spot where she woke up for some time. No one came to see her, except the lovely song of the mighty waterfall that was always there. In her ears, so sensitive, this constant melody brought secret sparks of joy, and she felt surges of vitality light up in her soul. This mysterious sparkly energy splashed around her bones and muscles, animating the heavy body that kept her down.

She managed to pull herself up and propping her wings against the earth, she balanced on her tripod feet. Slowly, Songbird waddled to the banks of a river and peeked up then down, her eyes wide in amazement and awe of the stunning views of nature.

A spray of sparkly drops with a sash of rainbow colors tied around its heavy waist, hovered in the blue sunny air. A pleasant breeze took the rainbow spray by the hand and together, they glided over and wrapped themselves around the Songbird's dull looking plumage. When she looked at her wings, she saw they glimmered in the colours of the rainbow.

Dressed in a sparkly gown with two rainbow sleeves, Songbird rose to the sky like a shiny star. Soft sound waves of her flapping wings were swallowed by the mighty waterfall. Its roar overwhelmed her whole being as she flew closer to it, giving her power to fly higher. Brilliance flooded the air where the skylight kissed the reflective glaze of the water surface. As she glided on the shine of this life-giving light, her spirit expanded, making her body light, her flight easy. She soared to yet unexplored heights, joyfully turning in the air with her eyes closed and with her belly pumping out the songs of thanks to the environment that healed her.

When Songbird opened her eyes, she saw misty fog swirling around what may have been the highest peaks of a giant thrusting cliff way above the clouds. In her nostrils, the mist felt like a fluid made of crushed grainy dust, that also compromised her recently acquired palette of protective colours on her feathers. All she could see inside the foggy belt was white darkness.

Feeling that she could become completely fog-blinked, Songbird flapped her wings so frantically that she flew over the cliff and stormed down the other side of the precipice. As she reached the place where the fog broke into fluffy clouds which bounced on the bungee cords of sunshine, Songbird relaxed a bit, yet remained aware that even on the other side of the cliff, she was the only bird in the air – alone the way she had been ever since she escaped from the burning forest.

Regardless, her spirits sparked up again when she noticed her rainbow gown fluttering around her against the backdrop of the golden-orange warmth. She sneezed to clear the last remains of the grainy fluid dust from her airway, and sneezed again and again. And then, it became worse. She started to cough and flashbacks of the forest fire flooded her.

After surviving the fire, her breathing was very sensitive. Even a thought of her traumatic past experience made her gasp for air. This time, however, it was real. As she flew closer down to where the cliff smoothed out into a valley, she became entangled into drifty wisps of smoke. To her surprise, she realized that the smoke was not a result of fire, but that it emerged from water. This smoke smelled medicinal to her, so she followed its spiral down to where the water seemed to boil.

Songbird didn't know that it was steam and not smoke that rose in the air. Coming close to the water to satisfy her curiosity, she burnt her beak. Flinching in pain, her wings took her up and backwards, and without seeing where she was going, she bumped and fell in a dark green bush of a plant with silverish sheen on its pillow-like leaves. When she rubbed her beak against the leaves to relieve the pain, the plant gave off the medicinal smell that had attracted her to the boiling waters.

Her heart was pounding. She was previously unaware of her ability to fly backwards to escape danger. In disbelief she looked at her rainbow wings. For the sheer sake of an experiment, she tried rotating her wings in various directions. She could fly backwards and sideways, she discovered.

Carried away with her newfound abilities, Songbird hardly noticed that her tripod feet were becoming coated in resin-like clusters of beads. Being transparent, she, at first, did not notice the plant's seeds on its leaves until her feet started to feel sticky. Trying to avoid being stuck to a surface, she relied on her wings to keep her in the air at all times. Without a break and with so much practice, her wings became fast and with this skyrocketing speed, the number of her flaps grew exponentially. The movement of her wings started to appear like a still picture of eternity suspended in the air. Wide-eyed, Songbird remembered that she had seen hummingbirds fly in the shape of eternity, but never expected that she herself would have such skill to move her little wings into shiny blue stillness. Her propeller wings knocked down the silverish leaves of the fragrant plant and she observed them drift down into the geyser.

She followed them and the sweet smell of the steamed leaves became stronger. The longer she flitted around the hotspring, the more its temperature became hospitable to her presence, so she managed to get very close to the steaming waters.

Songbird glided onto a rock that held its face above the bubbling wetness, sat down, gracefully fluffing her feathers like a ballerina would her skirt, and plunged her feet in the geyser. The resin melted off her feet, and a plume of smoke rose up in her face. Of medicinal potency, the mellow smell of herbs sent her flying higher than ever to a place of discoveries and spiritual growth, where she started to feel at home.

II

Her life broke into splinters when a sudden storm jolted Songbird into a different reality. The waters that once had been blue and sparkly turned dark. They rose in the air and flowed backwards to disappear in their own wells. Howling winds knocked Songbird into the raging waters that tossed her around and pulled her under. She responded by tickling the tummy of the giant, mean waves. As they laughed, their muscles relaxed and became springy. She jumped on their stomach, which became like a trampoline, and hurled herself high up above them. Reaching the air, she gasped and opened her eyes. All that she could see behind the receding waters was a parched and broken landscape.



III

She woke up in front of a tiny bird who was crying.

Humongous tears swelled under his eyelids and rolled down the dusty tear-streaked cheeks of this shiny purple blue beak, whose wings' flutter she recognized to be in a shape of eternity. His sighs were audible, and she could not help but feel them in her own heart. When Hummingbird finally opened his eyes, he noticed Songbird. It was a miracle to see another bird in the hostile environment.

They found themselves in a long silent dialogue, feeling like one, the two birds that just saw each other. Sensing, however, that it was the end of time, painful grief overwhelmed the Songbird's soul, for she had to say goodbye to this love before it could even begin.

Tearful, Songbird broke the silence and spoke in a soft tune, which appeared to be familiar to his own ears. "I marvel at your wings," she told Hummingbird. "When I lived in a land with lights so brilliant and waters so sweet and healing, I could move my wings fast and in full circles, just like you are right now."

Listening to her, Hummingbird started to have a funny feeling that they may know each other in ways unrevealed.

"I used to live in a forest which was engulfed in fire that incinerated homes of many animals,"said Hummingbird. "They scattered and fled to a safer place. I myself stayed doing everything I could to stop the inferno. I carried in my beak the frosty glacier water my friend Silverlake shared with me, and dropped it on the burning forest. And so, I flew back and forth until I became very thirsty. In my very last flight, I opened my beak, but before the fire could lick the falling drop of water, I swooped down and drank it. It was from that time on, that I could hear the melody of a very sad song, similar to the one I just heard you sing.”

“I also lived in that forest and I tried to escape the fire, but my wings were too slow,” said Songbird, surprised to hear this story so familiar to her. "I was unable to escape the fire, and I wouldn't know how, but I woke up in a beautiful world full of light and sparkly waters."

“Is it possible that you were saved in that drop of water I swallowed?” Hummingbird asked in disbelief. “My heart's been a refuge to many and a teacher,” he began, and then as if struck by a lightning, said with conviction, "You entered my heart in that drop of water I drank to survive."

Songbird felt that this may be very true. Tears sparkled up her eyes, and a song full of praise and thanksgiving poured out: “So, the waters..., the magnificent streams and waterfalls that healed me, were in your soul” sang Songbird excitedly, "and you, being a hummingbird, must have naturally fed them with the flower nectar...that's why they were so sweet..."

“True, but the flowers are all gone now," Hummingbird interrupted her. "Fruit trees are wilted. Humans have replaced them with flowers and trees made of plastic. Their leaves are keeping the sun out. Without natural nectar and fruit flies, and without the sun and warmth, almost all hummingbirds have perished."

Their dialogue resumed in silence.

Songbird knew that her friend was dying and that she had to save him. She went out to scout the cold world made of concrete and plastic, where machines worked constantly, making terrible, terrible noise. Songbird's wings did not require energy of the flower nectar. She could survive on few seeds, only if she could find them.

Time passed. When Songbird returned, Hummingbird was laying on his back, but his eyes were still warm and blinking.

“I brought you a gift,” she said, and from a strap on her back, she pulled out a finely carved and painted paddle.

“I think, I will survive,” she continued. “I found a rare person who was happy to see a bird and share of their stash of hidden seeds. They are planting some of them and hoping that they would sprout into plants that need birds to pollinate them. I think flowers will grow again, but it will take time. Until then, THIS PADDLE IS FOR YOU!!”

Hummingbird was too weak to say anything at this point. Only a faint glimmer appeared in his eye.

Songbird took him gently in her arms. His body was very light and she could lift him easily. Bringing him close to her face, she placed Hummingbird and his paddle in a tear canoe she managed to keep in her eye. She flung her head back, and the canoe set out on a journey to her soul.

That was the place where Hummingbird had survived the big environmental crisis until the times when the Creator's planet grew back again in all its glory.