He is back not that he was ever really away. My robin that is. Obviously not just mine he probably ferrets around a number of gardens but I am happy to include him as extended family. Like a distance relative, so very well removed that he no longer resembles us in anyway.
His main advantage is that he owns his own place. I don’t have to invite him in, therefore not forced in any way to break the rules. Although there have been a few occasions when he has somehow breached the unwritten boundary of his world and mine. His home however remains outside but then he lives in harmony with the earth, he is in fact more a part of its living rhythm than we will ever be.
I am merely interesting to him as a feeder. I do get the satisfaction of seeing that flash of red around which colours the almost constant grey we have had this winter. Watching nature helps our soul and can steady the swirling of our thoughts.
Speaking of which I have a bit of a problem. When you don’t see distance relatives for a while you can often get them muddled. My feathered friend is no different. Robins as we know are all similar. Red breast, bit of grey, brown and white, beak, two legs, a couple of wings and a tail. I have four frequent visitors to my garden. How do I know who is the original bird and who are the usurpers?
Do I just choose one and then refuse to countenance that my choice was wrong? What if I choose the wrong one? Do I then ignore the fact that his plumage is obviously from this year? After all I have made my choice and who likes admitting they are wrong? Better to keep listening to my mind as it repeats and regurgitates my own thoughts.
May be I should make a table of their differences and see what that shows up. Then again so much less work to just keep believing and fanning my own thoughts, bending the world to fit. Who needs facts and figures if they don’t match what I want to be true? Why should I listen to that niggle or doubt?
In the end does it matter which is which? It is not that I am likely to intercede in their constant bickering and fighting. They will sort it out in their own way. I’m trying not to think of that too much and hope that they will learn to live close and give each other enough room.
Unfortunately a peaceful solution doesn’t always work out in the natural world. It is often the weak and vulnerable that fall victim to the stronger more powerful ones. It is the same in our world.
Birds don’t understand democracy. They don’t care who has a left or right disposition. A flock has no religious connotations to them. It is only we humans who play by these rules, or not as it turns out.
Like many I shook my head in wonder at events over the ocean. A country that for years hounded, harassed and often put down anyone with a glimmer of socialistic tendencies should have been looking the other way. The threat to their nationhood as it turns out were not coming from the left.
I look out again at my garden. Everything is frozen and hard. A layer of white covers the ground and adds a magical feel to the air. I know though that this is a fragile world, should I be left out in the cold even my survival would be in jeopardy.
However, the bulbs are beginning to sprout. Green tips can be seen poking through the cold earth. Bird song fills the air as four robins flirt around the trees. Winter is not over yet but the beginnings of a new spring can be seen. I wonder how many robins that will bring.