Soaring

Its late afternoon and the heat of the day prompts movement in the air; the warmth of the earth gives life to an updraft, inviting the sensation of lake air that calls from the reaches of Scotch Bonnet light. The interchange offers mindfulness of place; scent embraces a bank of clouds on high.

Up there, see them, the turkey buzzards, Cathartes aura. They enthral. I’ve been known to trip over stuff and walk into things with binoculars to my eyes wanting to see the immensity and grace of the birds as they circle in the heavens. They seemingly never move their wings except for a little tweak of shoulder muscle as they speed from here to there, voiceless and vigilant of the bouquet of smells that rise from the ground and from those to decipher the scent of the gases produced from decay of dead animals. The majestic bird preying upon unmoving, rotting flesh in some field of high grass or on an asphalt roadway or in dense bush, destined they are to find and remove the lastings of life. While seen in one culture as the cleanup crew, scavenger of dead carcass, others revere the bird for their role of transporting the spirits of the deceased to a higher place. John crow, carrion crow, such is the dichotomy of the species.

The metaphors work for me as there is a symphony in that endless grace of where the winds carry ancient feathered beings to collaborate; to cleanse the ground of rot that otherwise would contaminate the very soil we live on. What kind of symphony? To me, maybe the brilliance of Mark Knopfler where, with strings of his guitar and ten fingers can bring rise and light to the darkest of nights for anyone. Close your eyes, I say, and be that bird unfettered and curious in the sky, scan the earth below with head moving left to right, the sunset colour of beak is the only break in its shadow palette, for that alone is part of the mystique.

The birds have moved out of frame and now it is the tip of the wisteria vine that my binoculars take hold of, locked as they are and as I sit awhile I am sure to watch it grow, frame by frame, tender white flowers and unfolding neck that stretches for the next grip so the vine itself may rise to take flight with the passing monarch butterfly as it saunters in the breeze.

I wonder this morning if all of this, the soaring and the winds and the quick but slow growth of nature in a summer of sublime are intensified because of my diminished abilities to hear? Anyone who wears hearing aids recognizes the setback that we are reminded of when the devices are removed or, in my case, to run out of batteries for the things on a long weekend when stores that supply them are not readily available. I notice that while I can’t hear the wind chimes or the water running in the pond and I imagined it to be a quiet day for the songbirds, yet I feel the music of movement in time. As sound moments are temporarily lost, the visual sensations are isolated from the norm. I am fortunate to enjoy hearing, my loss due to excess sound levels working in studios. I’m fortunate that a technical apparatus will compensate for most of that hearing: it is not the case for many.