I took the long way to the university this morning so I could walk along Blackett Avenue. For some birds are mad about this avenue. I am new to this matter of birding. My father knew the secret long before I did. I still remember the day I first realized that his vision was different then mine.
I was home from boarding school in Kenya, only we weren’t home, rather we were living in tents in Loita Hills with a host of new missionaries to whom my parents were attempting to teach the ropes of living in the bush. Early one morning he led a walk for birds, and I went along.
Awake before the sun, screeching and singing,
The birds tussled over fruit in the trees.
Moving in the gray light like sleepwalkers,
we straggled behind my father,
bored by the multitudes:
crowds of birds clustered in the trees,
fluttering through the brush at our approach.
Blearily I watched my father
his darting glances,
nods, whispers,
Then the field glasses were pressed into my hands.
I raised them to my eyes;
the indistinguishable grey masses faded.
My eyes ignited—
explosions of color,
crests, feathers, rills, beaks, gleaming wings
filled my vision.
And I understood—my father sees the world filled with birds.
And now I do too. Praise be.
