Lenten Reflection Series: An Ode to Birds

by Kayla Schneider-Smith

When I was twelve years old, a seagull swooped down and stole a half-eaten gummy candy out of my fingers on the boardwalk of Ocean City, NJ. I saw everything as if through binoculars: the reptilian talons hovering just above my right shoulder, the pale, beady eye, the curved beak aiming for the morsel between my fingers. Following this and several other seagull-related incidents that summer, I convinced myself I’d forever be afraid of birds, and not just annoying seagulls: even innocent pigeons pecking their way beneath restaurant tables eventually frightened me. So that when I was selecting courses for this semester, I surprised myself by enrolling in a seminar called “Ecopoets: Poets and Birds”. 

It’s because of this class that I’ve been given the opportunity to transform my fear of birds into the delight of identifying them: sparrows, robins, cardinals, blue jays, hummingbirds, peregrines, and ravens have recently enhanced my life with their presence. As centuries of poets have proclaimed, birds truly are messengers between earth and sky, between the grounded and divine. Personally, I’ve been meditating on how to find love and connection not just through other people, but through the natural world. I think we humans, especially now, enduring prolonged isolation from one another, can get so caught up in our personal and collective issues that we sometimes forget we coexist with other creatures in an interconnected ecosystem. Birds teach us to be present and aware of the fleeting moment. And the truth is, the birds have always been there. Have we taken the time to notice them? 

The following are two poems I wrote for my “Poets and Birds” class:

Tell it to the Blackbird

Before birdsong,

I thought myself alone –

human as I am,

not listening

not hearing the blackbirds’

cacophony in the trees

not seeing

the red cardinal’s wound

against the snow

a stranger to the blue jay

in my own backyard –

and how wrong in that assumption:

in the place where you left, look!

new birds flying in each morning

The Cardinal: A Villanelle

Cardinal, you are always landing when I’m flying off,

though you’ll never know me

nor reciprocate my love,

you ground me for a moment, from above,

a wound against the white snow, see,

you are always landing when I’m flying off:

out of sight, across the country, it’s tough

to leave the garish beauty

of a cardinal’s love

You’re my favorite cardinal, and that’s enough

but I am only human, and we

are seldom landing, always flying off:

our balconies, our rooftops, the feeder trough,

throbbing red in barren branches, please

teach me how to love

the softness of a moment, the simple stuff

a wafting breeze of melody,

always landing while I’m flying off

to search for fine & fiercer love

Kayla Schneider-Smith is a second-year poet in the University of San Francisco’s Master of Fine Arts in Writing Program, and a Resident Minister in Toler Hall.