“In this world of overrated pleasures and underrated treasures” (from the song “I’m Glad There is You”), the most beautiful experience is to start your day at 4 o’clock in the morning, have a mug of brewed coffee, and go up to a rooftop to wait for the break of dawn and to say your morning prayer to the symphony of the morning song of rustling leaves and chirping birds.
For the past eight months from this rooftop, I have, on a clear day, seen forever.
Here, each morning as soon as the sun peeps through the distant trees, I feed a flock of birds with any of their favorite foods: birdseeds, rice, or a three- or four-day-old bread that I had broken into tiny morsels the night before while watching TV. (They don’t like fresh bread because it sticks to their mouth.) I also rinse their water container and refill it.
They used to be wary of me and would fly away as soon as they would see me, but as days went by and they felt sure I had no slingshots with me, we became such friends that we had names for each other. They called me Food Human and I called them Hungry Birds.
Whenever I failed, now and then, to come up on time because I still had to monitor important early news on CNN or to attend to some other preoccupation that we humans find so necessary in our lives, one of them would soon perch on the window sill, cock its head this way and that to make sure I am Food Human, and tell me to hurry up, they’re hungry.
I would sneak up on them, trying not to make any sound with my slippers and, just as I had thought, they would already be talking about me:
“Is Food Human dead?”
“No, of course not. Humans live long.”
“Why?”
“They live only once, and then they die, and other humans put them on the ground, and they are not seen again.”
“They don’t come back like us?”
“Not anymore. Not like you, The One always makes you live again after you die.”
“That is very sad.”
“No, because more humans take their place.”
“So if Food Human dies, we will not see her again?”
“I don’t know. Only The One knows that.”
Then there was the collective announcement. “She’s here! She’s here! Food Human is here!”
I would recognize the sound, a distinctly peculiar one like that of the crickets’ at dusk—the sound they make when they are calling other birds to come and eat. Some would fly to nearby trees to make the same announcement with the same sound. They were city swallows, but their call to food seemed to be understood by all kinds of birds as others, in various colors, wingspans and tail lengths, come and join them for breakfast.
While they pecked at the food I would “hide” in my part of the roof deck. Much earlier in our friendship we had, by mutual agreement, set the boundaries of our spaces, where we could see each other as our lines of sight were effectively blocked by the stairwell.
I then would go through my morning exercises, sun myself and think, while listening to the morning news with earphones attached to a tiny radio I always have in my water-lily carry-all.
By eight-thirty I’d be done, and I would take a peek at them and go back to my room a flight of stairs below.
In an hour or two, three or four of them would perch on the sill or do a fly-by, take a look at me and chirp sweet-sounding thank-yous. I would acknowledge with a nod and they would fly away for the day.
But weeks ago, I received the most beautiful thank-you card I shall ever get in my lifetime.
When I went up to the roof deck one afternoon to watch the sunset, I noticed on the ledge a tiny eggshell that had a hole big enough only for a tiny birdling to get through, and I wondered how it had gotten to the ledge, as eggshells usually fall to the ground with the discarded nest.
Curious, I picked it up, and upon close scrutiny, I noticed a strand of hair glued to the shell; and more accurately than any DNA test could tell me, I recognized it as my own. One of them had made a strand of my hair as construction material for a nest and returned it to me.
But yesterday morning I fed them for the last time. I don’t know if they sensed this. I hate goodbyes. It had been three hours since I fed them but not one of them came to say thank you. I guessed they understood, and just like me, they too hate goodbyes.
Who will be their next Food Human? Who will break dry bread into tiny morsels for them while watching TV? Who will call them Hungry Birds?
Life is so uncertain.
But I know they have faith in The One. Just like the lilies of the field, they know The One will provide for them so they can do their work of scattering seeds that will resurrect into shrubs and trees.
And if the sun will come out this afternoon after days of rain, I will watch the sunset from the roof deck for the last time and, in my leave-taking I will look at the distant mountains, the trees, the sky and the clouds above me, and still my mind, and listen once again to that word that I had never heard before.
And if you’re interested to know what it is, maybe this song can help you:
“On a clear day//rise and look around you//and you’ll see who you are.//On a clear day, how it will astound you//when the glow of your being outshines every star.//You’ll be part of//every mountain, sea and shore//And you’ll hear, from far and near//a word you’ve never heard before.//And on a clear day, on that clear day//you can see forever, and ever, and evermore.”
May the blessings of Eid’l Fitr be with you always. EID MUBARAK!
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