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Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 4147 Registered: 11-1998 |
Honorable Mention The Bird Artist of Gibraltar Lauriette (Laurie Byro) Hope is a thing with feathers. Emily Dickinson As a boy, I was cruel in my apprenticeship. I waited for hours, a stone cupped and ready to fling for my art. When I crushed their heads, I found myself unable to get the wings right. Although intact, I felt the wrath of winds. My God is a punishing God, rarely witnessed—a black throated diver, a little grebe. You can count on certain expressions of faith. Once I found the body of a migrant--a common quail. My teacher, an exacting master, had decided I had perfected its beak, its coloring. I removed its feathers to spread them, still amazed at the ability to endure distance. I held the feathers in one hand. The body was insignificant. I wondered why it lagged behind. The others pecked it to death. A slow bird, not destined to be the first. My teacher says unless I understand, I will never get the eyes right. I long to be a flamingo. Languid and stunning, all show and brag. I painted one once. In front of my easel while eating tangerines. I gorged myself on all shades of pink. That night, the stranger I danced with told me I smelled of citrus and turpentine. The laughing gulls would call me a romantic. But I understand their motives. I never did ask her name, nor her habitat, whether she wintered here or in the Islands. Migrants can be very unreliable and I am more like the seagulls who laugh at my dilemma. I pick through lovers, looking for cast-offs. I guard against commitment, try to protect my unsteady, vagrant heart. |
