Sunday, May 15, 2011

Garden Gladiator

 Early this morning when Dawn was still dressed in her lavender nightie, I heard a "flinking" sound. Flink. Flink. My subconscious folded the noise back into a dream omelette.  The flinks got louder. Then it dawned on me that someone was throwing something at my window.

 I hauled my achin' bacon downstairs to the kitchen, instinctively reaching around for a coffee cup. Scratching my head, I wondered if this was a happy dreamwalk, or...FLINK!! It hit the window hard! "What ...?"
 A robin bobbed up and down outside on a branch and glared in the window. He looked pissed. And then he hurled himself right at the glass! FLINK!!! Again, and again, and again.

 With open mouth, I noticed a small figurine on the inside window ledge. An antique porcelain blackbird used for venting hot pies. Maybe that bird outside is a mother who is trying to rescue her poor chick. Awww... Her baby has fallen into the evil clutches of humans who bake chirrens into pies.

"I'm coming my darling!"
"I'll rescue you!" FLINK!! WAM!!
 [Or] perhaps the blackbird appears to be a threat? Nah, it's too cute.

I remember when I was four years old my mother sang, "Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie..." Sick. As I remember, the birds' relatives hired hit men, rather "hit birds" who came back and pecked off her nose. Which goes to show yah.

I was a wide-eyed child thereafter. Waiting. Watching. Expecting any moment for those bad boy birds to come calling. and so after all these years he's come for me. FLINK!! WAM!!

After a couple weeks of this hell-bent, and now beak-bent bird-brain smack down, I realized that he was fighting his reflection. I overheard the following:

"Hey you! What are you doin' here?"
"You talkin' to me? What are you doing here?"
"I own this yard!"
"Oh, yeah? I own this yard!"
"You're a stupid looking bird."
"You're the stupid one!"
"I will fight you!"
"I will fight you!"
"I'm not kidding!"
"Me neither!"
Swoop! FLINK!! WAM!!
"Owww.. That dude has a hard head."
"What? You still here?"
And so on.

"We have met the enemy. And he is us."––Walt Kelly