Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Life imitates life

There is a young robin that has fallen in love with my pet cockatiel, Bananafish. Every morning when I do my yoga I let Bananafish out of his cage. He flies around the room, stretches his wings when I do the Sun Salutation, and lands on my head or shoulders when I'm in quieter poses. He imitates the sounds I make, a few household machinery rings, dings and chugs, and can say a few key phrases for bird networking (Who's a pretty bird? Bananafish. I'm a peepy peeper. Love you!) I've noticed that he also imitates other bird chirps. Apparently he does a really good impression of a robin. This morning he lured one right into the window and it hit with a dull thwack and landed in the lemon balm in the garden below. The poor robin just sat there, regrouping, it's little beak downturned like half of a staple. Scruffy. Perhaps pissed. Plotting a sweet, lemony revenge.

4 comments:

Talia Reed said...

A beautiful poem!

Jodi Anderson said...

Oh, beautiful, beautiful birds. I don't know what it is about them, besides song, that captures me so. It's not the flying thing, though that is certainly a lovely gift to have.

I watch them from my adirondack chairs. I dodge them with my car. I spy on them with the cats and listen to them sing ... as I posted on my video blog earlier this morning. ;)

I love that you have a pet bird.

Also, one of these WEEKS I'm going to get around to emailing you about the LOVELY poetry books that you sent to me. I try to read one or two poems a day, soaking them up like a sponge and water.

Susan said...

Oh, my! I look forward to meeting Bananafish. Jerry's brother's family had a bird that would lure the poodle over to his cage (by actually calling him) and then act as though the dog was attacking him. He got away with it until someone observed this from the sofa while the bird thought she was asleep.

Indigo Bunting said...

Sounds like a perfect day for Bananafish, not so perfect for the robin.