not native fruit

bird-watching

Living a contemplative life in my twenties, I became interested in watching and identifying birds.  Every year I would watch the seasonal migrations and antics of familiar birds.  Mourning doves could be heard most mornings.  Towhees and chickadees were prevalently seen.  At certain times of year, I'd see flocks of large, colorful cedar-waxwings sitting bolt-upright like choir-boys in our hawthorn tree, or I'd enjoy the sight of delicate, amusing flocks of tiny bush-tits decorating our pyracantha at odd angles.  While sitting in our garden, the whirr of a hummingbird  often sounded close to my ear, just before the flash of color when it bolted away because my head intinctively turned towards the motor-boat sound.  One year I saw a ring-necked pigeon swoop low over our garden, and I thought it was an eagle!  More recently a hawk and a blue heron have been seen scouting the neighborhood. 

There are two hummingbird nests in a neighbor's rhododendron - tiny little gossamer cups, spun from spiders' webs. We've had a mockingbird who sang only the songs of western birds for several years, and after that a raucous california jay camped out for a couple of years too.  Finches abound.  Seagulls.  Crows.

I have a crow-story to share.  When I visited India in 2003, I attended a wonderful gathering of tens of thousands of people, and in one of the tents that was air-conditioned (by electric fans), a crow had been injured.  I was asked to carry it to the medical facility.  The damaged crow flopped about in an impotent rage on the floor, dangerous because of its powerful beak.  Swami managed to catch it and picked it up, and asked me to take it.  I was very careful to hold its wings quite firmly yet gently, because I knew how easily a bird can escape from your hands.  And now there was the question how I would be able to walk with the terrified bird through the throngs and throngs of people over an unknown distance to the medical tent! I asked someone to drop a cloth napkin over the bird's head from behind, which she did.  The crow immediately relaxed and allowed me to carry it through the huge and noisy mulititude for a distance of about a quarter to a half a mile.  Once I arrived at the medical tent, the doctors were a little surprised to learn that their patient was a crow, but the creature was dutifully taken home and nursed back to health.  It was an amazing experience to hold such a large wild bird, with its massive and powerful black beak, in my bare hands.  I've never felt the same about crows since then, and I like to imagine, when I see them in the trees of the neighborhood, that we have a special relationship.  We are friends.

horned owl

What a fearful bassoon!
As I child I heard it
from the ruins of Bugge's castle.
The words went thus:
'This truly spectral music
was made by the great hero himself
in the ancient hall, where he moans
over the castle's fall,
where his knightly blood
was fatefully poured out
by an assasin.'
When I became a soldier I said,
'That was the sound of that wild hunter.'
Every night he must repair
to his profligate ways, therefore
it was a happy time when
in peace and tranquility
I could believe in fairy tales and fables.
Was there anyone who could strike such terror,
Was there any other who could occupy my thoughts
and fill my young breast with such anxieties?
Himself both the Terror and Joy -
yes, your beak can do all this, you, Wild Hunter,
with the cry of your hunting horn!
But, away the ancient horror!
With the Magic of the young Day -
full again with my old fantasies!
And if, as a man, I've learned the whole story,
let me, nevertheless, as a poet
be like a child!

This is the fourth bird in Steen Steensen Blicher's 'Traekfulgere' / Birds of Passage, about the birds that transited through his native Jutland in the nineteenth century. He reflects, at the end of his life, on what these birds, and his associations with them as a poet, have meant to him. By the way, Niels Bugge was a famous hero in Danish lore.  My father was very proud to bear the name of Niels after him.

I find that Americans, and most Europeans, associate the owl with death, even though in Greek mythology, it is associated with wisdom.  Maybe it's because it is commonly held that the awareness of death brings wisdom, but it is easier to fear death than to accept its gift of wisdom.

Our spiritual teacher, Amma, will be arriving on our shores in just two short weeks, to bring solace and transformation to many.  When she holds temple programs in her native India there is a kind of eagle that circles above the temples and sometimes lands on its pinnacle while Amma is there.  It happens all over India, wherever she goes.  We also have a temple in San Ramon where Amma holds her programs, and there is a very large owl, it must be a barn owl, that flies out of the surrounding trees from somewhere and alights on the pinnacle of the temple at night.  I've seen this large owl, sitting up there, several times myself.  You might think it would be afraid of the crowds, or want to keep away.  It is not hanging around where the food is being served, which is about a quarter of a mile away.  No, it just likes to sit up there on the rooftop when Amma is in the hall.

greenfinch

the greenfinch is the third in the series of thirty migrating birds Steen Steensen Blicher observed, and loved, in his native Jutland, immortalizing them in his long poem 'Traekfulgere' or 'Birds of Passage' in 1828.   my translation is 'iffy' at best, but i especially wanted to get this poem up on line because it seemed so appropriate for easter, with its twin themes of death and hope.  Steen wrote this final poem not long before he died, and i, too, find that as a i grow older, it does seem important to review the past, and to 'own' it, and to somehow 'put it all together.'

i might add that in my youth i thought it was 'terrible' that old people 'lived in the past,' and while i'm not advocating 'living' in the past, i do think, now, that it is 'terribly important' to make peace with one's life, and that takes 'remembering.'   in 'greenfinch' the poet opines that perhaps no one will remember him and his life on the moors of Jutland.  once again, i can understand that concern now, the desire to share what your life has meant, and as a matter of fact, that desire is a lot of what this blog is about for me.  In this particular verse Steen also expresses his regret at leaving what he loves.

I must also mention that Pica of 'Feathers of Hope' has pointed out that Steen Blicher seems to imitate the flight-pattern of the birds he knew and loved in the rhythms of his poems.  I hear the ground-hugging short-swooping flight-pattern of the towhees, sparrows, and other finches I've observed here in Berkeley, in the lines of this verse, even in my poor translation.  Isn't this mastery?

greenfinch

You, who are dressed in the costume of Springtime's Hope,
You have expunged the winter weather;
be heartily welcomed, my swedish bird!
You, all in green, have kept hold of Christmas,
and now where are You going for this Summer?
To those green-clad cliffs thither,
where my amusing thoughts may follow You?
For it could never go ill with me
as long as I remember
these glorious rivers, these humble streams,
this lively valley, this mountain so grave,
and the people who live in these beautiful dales!
And the old women, so comely in speech,
who tell of those who've passed on,
(for they are the daughters of the misty past):
but alas! will there be none left who care about me?
Yet there may be one and another
who will remember me when You sing out,
as You can, in this beautiful, blessed Home,
"There lives a man on these fields of Jutland,
he is a poet of tales, a poet of songs;
shedding a sad caring glance towards sweden's coast
with a tear in his eye and a sigh in his breast."

song lark

this is the second bird (of thirty) from Steen Steensen Blicher's 1828 poem/composition 'Traekfulgere' / Birds of Passage.

i have to apologize again for how poor my translation is; I'm still learning.  Please feel free to share your corrections with me.  Thanks.

SONG LARK

There is he, himself!  Welcome a thousand times,
O Thou, my Lovely One, who travels over
the dry winter fields, to wake Spring!
While the frost still closes fast the lake's breast,
you will open mine with your joyous song.
But, alas, is it not yet too early for you to foretell
the deeply desired Spring?
Too early, yet, for celebrating?
The white winter still triumphs for a time,
so, no doubt, you expect ingratitude in exchange
for your prophecy.  But no!  For you sing equally well,
pretty poet, whether you foretell truly, or your prophecy fails.
For the dispirited mind, all happiness departs
and fear comes into the soul;
but you, by contrast, are the bringer of Hope.
Rightly so, my friend!  You sing your best
just the same during winter storms
as on the clearest Zephyr's breath:
amid the dark shades of Night
as among the sparkling diamonds of Morning,
effervescent with the Breath of the Spirit.
With glad-song you greet the Dawn,
wholly unconcerned with finding food;
every evening, with song you settle down to peaceful sleep,
and at midnight, you chant, undaunted.
Right so!  Yet why not at Harvest as at Spring?
Because, obeying the time of migration,
you bid good-bye to Summer-life,
with equal cheer warbling your Farewell.

golden plover

This is the first verse from Traekfulgere by Steen Blicher:

Golden Plover!  has he not an Air?
even in the minor key;
that voice is a little melancholy,
and yet I cry, 'Encore!'
I love his majestic style well,
it fits out there on the heath;
when the sea gannet clothes the heavens in gray
and the moor owl hoots.
it fits with the sighing winds
across the tops of the kairns,
to the king eagles' bloodthirsty cry,
scouting all the high places.
It gives Life in the whispering wilderness
yet is not far from merriment;
when the sky is gray and the earth dark,
that flute sounds cheerfully.
that leader of the Spring concert enters
with a serious Andante.
The more to amuse the soul and mind
with the lark's allegro brilliante!

I am certainly not sure of my translation, especially the words in parantheses.  But please, feel free to give it a go yourself:

Hjejlen!  han har ikkun een Melodie,
og den endda i Minore;
den stemmer lidt til Melankoli,
og dog jeg raaber: encore!
jeg ynder hands Maestoso godt;
den passer til heden derude;
naar havsulen klaeder himlen i graat,
og moseugleme tude.
den passer ret vel til blaestens suk
hen over gravhojes toppe,
til kongeomens blodtorstige kluk,
alt som han speider histoppe.
det giver live dog i skumle ork,
om langt fra ikke et lystigt;
er skyen graa og er jorden mork,
den flojte klinger dog trostigt.
den leder foraarsconcerten ind
med en alvorlig Andante.
desmeer forlystes da sjeael og sind
ved laerkens Allegro Brilliante.

birds of passage

I've begun listening to Danish music.  I have some wonderful contemporary folk music by

Svøorbsk and Lang Linken, and I'm also spending time with some of the old classics from the early part of the twentieth century: Carl Nielsen, Poul Schierbeck, Oluf Ring, etc.  Some of it is so beautiful!  Both lyrics and melodies. 

I've found a poet and teller of folk-tales, Steen Steensen Blicher, from Jutland, the part of Denmark my father came from, who composed a piece called 'Traekfulgere' (Birds of Passage) that was set to music.  The music seems to be lost now, except for the "Prelude,"  alternatively called, 'Sig Naemer Tiden', which is included in many collections of Danish songs.  You can listen to a short snippet of it on Amazon at this site, scroll down to #10.  (They've mispelled the title.)  I include the lyrics and their translation from the booklet accompanying the CD, below.

In my spare time (*)  I've been enjoying attempting to translate the lyrics to the entire piece, and thought I'd include my attempts here.  If I come to anything that is just beyond me, I will include... (dots, which in fact have a more literary name).  His work is a tad melancholy, and I guess this is where Soren Kierkegaard fits in to the picture.  But personally, I find a reminder that death is a part of life (endings as well as beginnings) rather refreshing.

Here is the Prelude to 'Birds of Passage':

Sig nærmer Tiden, da jeg maa væk,
        Jeg hører Vinterens Stemme;
Thi ogsaa jeg er kun her paa Træk,
        Og haver andensteds hjemme.

Jeg vidste længe, jeg skal herfra;
        Det Hjærtet ikke betynger,
Og derfor lige glad nu og da
        Paa Gjennemreisen jeg synger.

Jeg skulde sjunget lidt meer maaskee -
        Maaske vel ogsaa lidt bedre;
Men mørke Dage jeg maatte see,
        Og Storme rev mine Fjædre.

Jeg vilde gjerne i Guds Natur
        Med Frihed spændt mine Vinger,
Men sidder fast i mit snevre Buur,
        Det allevegne mig tvinger.

Jeg vilde gjerne fra høien Sky
        Udsendt de gladere Sange;
Men blive maa jeg for Kost og Ly
        En stakkels gjældbunden Fange.

Tidt ligevel til en Smule Trøst
        Jeg ud af Fængselet titter,
Og sender stundom min Veemodsrøst
        Med Længsel gjennem mit Gitter.

Lyt og, o Vandrer! til denne Sang,
        Lidt af din Vei Du hidtræde!
Gud veed, maaskee det er sidste Gang
        Du hører Livsfangen qvæde.

Mig bæres for, som ret snart i Qvel
        At Gitterværket vil briste;
Thi qviddre vil jeg et ømt Farvel;
        Maaske det bliver det sidste.

(This was written when the poet was nearing death, by the way.)

The time draws near when I must go!
I hear the voice of winter;
for I too am just migrating here
and belong somewhere else.

I should have sung a little more, maybe,
and maybe a little better, too;
but dark days I had to face
and the storm tore my feathers.

I would rather from the high sky
have sent out more happy songs;
but stay I must for bed and board -

as a poor prisoner held for debt.

I would rather in God's nature
freely have stretched my wings;
but I am stuck in my tight cage
which compels me everywhere.

I have a feeling that soon tonight
the lattice-work shall burst;
so I shall twitter a tender farewell, -
it might be my last.