the birds are confused

My new favourite thing about Yaddo is its backup diesel generator. It kept us in dans le jus, as it were, while the rest of the region was black-iced-out. There were conflicting reports at the during-the-worst-of-it dinner. A fun kind of ghost story doomsday apocalyptic worst-case scenario sitting around the campfire let’s scare ourselves silly speculation went around the table. Some guests said some on the staff had said they’d rarely seen Yaddo in the dark. Others guests said they’d known other guests who’d been here without power for two days. We were only without for a few minutes on Monday and by now most of the region is up and running again. The branches stopped dropping but the temperature didn’t. It’s bright sun cold today.

The birds are confused. Their houses are icicled over and their trees are rearranged. They land on ice-fat limbs and find themselves sliding down sagging glissandos. They alight just like they used to onto familiar fur branches, only to find themselves singing their treetop songs three inches off the ground. There were lots of different kinds of birds surveying the scene outside the Pine Garde sun porch yesterday. I wish I were better with names. The very little ones were as excited as apostrophes. A few fat ones did some resting. Maybe they weren’t fat; maybe their heads were just really small. They were rat-coloured and had nothing to say. The white and blue duo might have been blue jays. Anyway, they were blue, and just flew through. The red one must have been a cardinal. He was very handsome, and knew just where to sit. In the high white frozen branches he looked his reddest. Witness to all this activity it’s clear to me that I know nothing about birds and perhaps a bird book would come in handy.
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