Back from the Island and... I somehow thought there would be more news or something different would have happened while I was gone and while I was not paying attention to the world I know, but it's all the same. I should perhaps embrace the sameness with some kind of equanimity, relating it to the Great Lake I watched, as metaphor, because I just spent four days watching nothing but the same water, day in, day out. Watching and waiting for more of the same; water that has been moving in cycles for eons, the sun rising and setting in the same places; water, light, rocks and sand older than God.. but I can't relate the sameness of the water and the cycle of the morning sun from my observation towel on the beach as an analogy to the sameness of the world of CNN, because it didn't once bore or dissapoint me or leave me feeling cheated.
Not once.
Do you know that gulls land in groups in the same places in the mornings? Someone said to me that the birds like to go over the pickings of the day-before-leavings of the beach guests who visited to swim there, but that's not true; not entirely. I watched them and they weren't interested that much in what we left, not as much as you would think. I saw them and I realized that they come together just before daybreak. It put me to mind of the heavenly beings in that movie Wings of Desire who gather at the beach at sunrise. I won't tell you that the gulls gather in reverence, not in the way we probably understand, but I can tell you that they do prepare themselves in the morning in a most meditative way while they wait for the sun to show up. I saw one pecking at an old catfish carcass, but that was just one, and it was just for a moment. The others were mostly noiselessly grooming their feathers with pointy beaks. They only time they would screech was when they would arrive, just before landing... or in disagreement over some unseen offense; but just before sunrise they walk around, peck at the ground and.. mostly, they just quietly preen.
When I would see the debris of their under feathers on the beach later in the day when I would come back from a bike ride to go for a swim, I was no longer disgusted by the downy litter discarded by the scavengers.
It was wisps of white finery to me, scattered lightness in the blowing wind, a leftover manna from the silent flock, remains from an unsuspected early morning gathering of now wailing angels. And almost feeling privy to a secret, at midday I watched them float and dive over the aeonic water.
Not once.
Do you know that gulls land in groups in the same places in the mornings? Someone said to me that the birds like to go over the pickings of the day-before-leavings of the beach guests who visited to swim there, but that's not true; not entirely. I watched them and they weren't interested that much in what we left, not as much as you would think. I saw them and I realized that they come together just before daybreak. It put me to mind of the heavenly beings in that movie Wings of Desire who gather at the beach at sunrise. I won't tell you that the gulls gather in reverence, not in the way we probably understand, but I can tell you that they do prepare themselves in the morning in a most meditative way while they wait for the sun to show up. I saw one pecking at an old catfish carcass, but that was just one, and it was just for a moment. The others were mostly noiselessly grooming their feathers with pointy beaks. They only time they would screech was when they would arrive, just before landing... or in disagreement over some unseen offense; but just before sunrise they walk around, peck at the ground and.. mostly, they just quietly preen.
When I would see the debris of their under feathers on the beach later in the day when I would come back from a bike ride to go for a swim, I was no longer disgusted by the downy litter discarded by the scavengers.
It was wisps of white finery to me, scattered lightness in the blowing wind, a leftover manna from the silent flock, remains from an unsuspected early morning gathering of now wailing angels. And almost feeling privy to a secret, at midday I watched them float and dive over the aeonic water.
posted by SPOA | 9:47 PM
4 Comments:
They're together all night, too, in larger flocks. Somewhere else. A broad open space around a marsh or pond, sometimes on the beach. If a fox or feral cat or stray dog gets into them at night, they go nuts & you can hear them flying around in the dark.
Sounds like a wonderful vacation. Welcome back.
:)
Bob, I put a flock pic up for you (not being attacked) :)
Hi Bella!
AS, :)
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