I was talking to my friend Nurina the other night, who was telling me about Sufis and the various symbolic birds of the soul--I think... We were at a pub. It was kind of loud. And I said that I had a Christian blog about birds. And she asked me if I was dealing with birds on a symbolic level, and I said, no, I just like birds. I'm a green christian. But then I remembered the German mystic Mechthilde of Magdeburg and told Nurina about her--I'll return to her in my next post. And then, once I had started thinking about it, I realized that birds have cropped up as symbols of the Spirit and the human spirit in my writing and in my prayers for 10 years. And I've only gotten interested in the real feathered material creatures in the last two years. As if this love in me had been lying dormant, occasionally waving a wing around, waiting for me to discover it and set it free.
So I've been looking at my old things and finding the birds. And thinking of other Christians' use of birds in their writing, writing I've already read. I haven't gone looking for anything new, as that would be like just openly admitting that I'm never ever going to get my dissertation written... At any rate, I thought I'd post some pieces in June on this theme. If you are a lover of English poetry, you might have already realized that the title of this post is stolen from the luminous Gerald Manley Hopkins. This poem is from 1918, and it was in an online collection, www.bartleby.com, so I have decided to place it here without guilt. I like to read Hopkins' work aloud, in one-long-breathless-breath. And the lovely bird art is by the extraordinary Sandy Arensen. Asante, msanii...
The Windhover
To Christ our Lord
I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.
To Christ our Lord
I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.
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