For a bird a whim is not a god

Some say birds are freedom

But I don’t tend to agree.

Not in that blunt sense anyway,

Not the Western sense of flying away,

Flying off, untethered,

Irresponsible,

Unresponsive and lost.

No, for a bird a whim is not a god,

They got it together.

They are patterns

Singing in season

Moving but in tune with the blooms

Of flowers, or perhaps

The pull of a tide,

They ride

The waves. Waves of songbirds in winter

Waves of insects in summer

Songs of seasons,

Birds are patterns,

They keep time

With their forefathers

Singing the old dreams back,

And migration

Not take them

But bring them home,

Back, back to me,

Back to the same hollow in the same tree,

The same rock ledge in the same scree,

They are riders,

They ride the rhythms

Of the world.

No, for a bird a whim is not a god,

Their freedom is not individual,

Rather, woven

As a tapestry,

A ritual.

The freedom to evolve but one

Extreme,

Lyrated plume

Over a million years –

Preposterous!

Or to fill our bellies with fish

Then breed in New Zealand.

This freedom,

Not to die

Alone as a butterfly above the Mariana Trench,

This freedom sings us back

Stitching back into the fabric of the land.

Pollinator, Seed-disperser, Frugivore,

Good habits,

Ecological protagonist

Beholden,

The whole world’s beloved. Mm!

That is freedom.