Got those deep down can't fly wanna die blues
Those are the words of a song that I Love.
The first time I heard it. Richie Havens was singing it. I felt like someone was speaking to me and speaking for me.
It reflects my lifelong LOVE and yes, ENVY of birds.
I always wanted to fly.
Here is the beginning of the song:
There's a high flying bird flying way up in the sky
and I wonder if she looks down as she flies on by.
She is flying so deep and easy in the sky
Oh LOOK AT ME I am rooted like a tree
Got those deep down can't fly, Oh Lord, wanna die blues
OUR SECOND FLOOR PORCH, MY RETREAT When I was young and living in the second floor tenement on Englewood Avenue, I spent lots of time on the porch. One attraction was the proximity to the pigeons that nested on our roof and neighboring ones. For a few summers I can recall finding some fledgling who had blundered onto our porch in some early flight attempt and now could not get off.
Our porch was covered construction part of the house, not just railings and had a broad top to the half- wall where we could place flower pots or-- against all rules --sit and sometimes even stand.
I was forbidden to sit there but I often did. I would sit with my back against one of the square support columns and my feet up with extended legs along the top. My mother would scream if she caught me, but more often than not she did not see what I was up to.
I could read that way for hours, and also keep my eye on the streets below. See from my perch who was out and about to play with or maybe make some trouble.
When a baby bird appeared suddenly dragging a wing and cheeping piteously, that was a signal for me to go into full rescue mode. I would bring a saucer of milk out and soak bread crusts. Crumb by crumb I encouraged the trembling trapped birds to eat and get strong. Usually after two or three days of this they managed to fly away. and I would come out in the morning to an empty porch which I would be told to mop with hot sudsy water to erase all signs of pigeon life.
But once or twice, when the birds got stronger, they stayed. The most memorable bird was the one I named SMOKEY. He was all grey and shades of black and some dark iridescent blue around his ruff and puffer chest.
He was very young when I found him huddled in the corner of the porch. For him I used an eye dropper to put water and milk down his throat. He did not seem to like it, but he tolerated it.
Then I added the bread crumbs and later when he was bigger, I would cut up pieces of bologna and he snapped at those. By then he was my pet.
He had fixated on me and he would follow me everywhere.
I trained him to sit on my shoulder and after a while I dared to take him out and off the porch. I showed him outside to my down stairs neighbors the White children. AND then when word of his tameness spread other kids from the other streets came over to see him.
I was nearly out of my mind with delight. I tried walking further and further with him. Sometimes if a car or a loud noise scared him, he would fly off and go up to a tree, but as soon as I started walking again he would follow, and when I called. would alight on my shoulder.
I was madly in love with this bird. I even took him on my shoulder all the way to my friend Lucille's house on Columbus Avenue. He would fly away into a tree there, but he always watched where I was. When we were done playing and I started for home, I would clap my hands and call him and SMOKEY would descend.
HE was extremely smart. Lucille was very taken with him, and he would go to her shoulder if I placed him there. She would sometimes walk home with me, and then I would take him back when we got close to my street.
The most elaborate outing I ever had with him was when I walked to downtown Pawtucket with him, We were a sensation on the Main Street bridge and in front of the White Tower on the bridge. That was one of the happiest days of my life.
However, all was not so happy on the home front. My mother complained constantly of the pigeon sh_t all over the porch. This bird had out stayed his welcome, and she yelled that he had spoiled the porch. That it was too filthy for us to play out there or sit out there at night. She had a point. and she said that he should be with other birds and have a bird life. He could not spend the harsh winter on our porch and survive.
Then one day I walked out to the porch and it was empty. He was gone. I clapped and called his name but nothing happened. My mother was glad--he has just gone to join his bird family, she said.
SPOILER ALERT : THIS STORY DOES NOT END HAPPILY!
One hot day in late August my mother was washing dishes in front of the open window over her sink when suddenly she said, WHAT IS THAT AWFUL SMELL?
She opened the screen and stuck her head out the window, something has died and is rotting on the roof. I went out onto the porch and could see just a smokey grey wing hanging over the edge of the rain gutter attached to the roof, My mother had gotten a broom and was leaning out the kitchen window using the long handle to prod the thing that was there. All at once it tumbled to the ground below. It was SMOKEY.
I ran down to the yard and saw his grey and black feathers and that iridescent blue ruff that I had stroked so often and I knew it was Smokey. I began to cry and I could not stop. My mother called down to me.
There is a shovel in the back hall. Bury him.
I got the shovel and began to dig in the hard dry dirt. When I turned him over to roll him into the hole, I could see where the maggots were feeding and there was a terrible stench.
I retched but finished the work. My mother and Aunt Anna were fighting in the kitchen about it.
I heard my mother say over and over again:
No, it is her bird. She loves that bird, this is her job.
And I knew that she was right--she usually was right about love.
When you love someone you go to the last with him and you never flinch. But you do cry and weep. I know I did.
As I placed the soil over Smokey's body I began to sing to myself a little chant that we were learning in our Gregorian class in 4th grade.
DIES IRAE, DIES ILLA
| 1 | Dies iræ, dies illa Solvet sæclum in favilla, Teste David cum Sibylla. | The day of wrath, that day will dissolve the world in ashes, David being witness along with the Sibyl. |
Then when I smoothed the spot over I looked for some rocks in the yard and I marked the spot. And I made a sign SMOKEY R.I.P.
And stuck a stick through it and placed it into the ground. Later
I told the other children and they came and we put any flowers we could find on the grave spot.
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