"Passer, deliciae" - what could be sweeter?" poet Joy Davidman wrote in a love sonnet to her future husband, C. S. Lewis. The direct translation, "Sparrow, darling..." informs us that the Latin word for sparrow is passer, which I adore because it is precisely what they do: pass us up and down and above. 

Passing, passing, always passing. There is no wild like the wild of a bird. It is near and then - phllliitt - gone.

We sing their names and keep them near, but can you hold a bird still? Keep it quiet? Tame a bird? Own a bird? Without losing its birdness? (Terry Pratchett argues that one should not do this with a cat, either.)

There is no wild like the wild of a bird.

"I saw their pale feathered forms flying through the glow of a waxing moon. I could feel their wild hearts' murmurings; I longed as they did for other places far away but close to heart."  These heart-speak lines from J. Drew Lanham, an academic, writer, poet, and warmly open-handed adorer of birds, say it completely. From Landham's Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts.

A Dream of Swans

I saw their pale feathered forms flying through the glow of a waxing moon. I could feel their wild hearts' murmurings; I longed as they did for other places far away but close to heart. I took flight in that swan dream. I took flight and sailed with kindred spirits over salt marsh and fallow field. The earth- landscapes sprawled in space and flattened in time passed beneath the folding and unfolding of my wings. I was of it all and yet not a part of any that was. I murmured, too. I murmured a sweet and sad swan song whispering in the way that wild winged things do of wanderings and wanting and wishing for the felt-but unseen. In my dream flight, my wings whooshed and my voice was no longer my own and my swan soul moaned, the peeping frogs peeped from their ponds, and the tide rose and fell on the ocean's swell because desire deemed it so. In that swan dream as I flew across the waxing bay moon my breast ached with strokes urgent rowed against imagined sky and yet when I woke I found that I did not fly.

"Everyone has a bird story," Lanham writes sweetly, and we realize immediately: yes, I have a bird story!

Is a swan your bird story? Which bird is your bird story? Mine is a crow. But do not let that sway you. (But know crows are the best.) 

"Crow" by Talya Baldwin, a Yorkshire artist and illustrator of birds and occasionally fantastic humans.

"A pigeon's sense of home is local and distinct; therefore, it is a place rather than an environment. In this, they are very much like us," Jon Day writes of his beloved racing pigeons. Birds might have ancient reptilian ancestors and fly in worlds we can only imagine, but instinctually, their social structures, coupling habits, and their technical and conceptual notion of 'home' significantly parallel humankind.  

The bright, lively, stair-ascending pigeons of collage artist Mark Hearld.

Or what about author Helen MacDonald, who submits to a goshawk's wild whims to connect with the magical beast: "I must not punish the hawk, though it bates, and beats and my hand is raw... Hawks cannot be punished. They would rather die than submit. Patience is my only weapon."

Birds require and inspire patience, longing, sorrow, and star-gazing love. "Until such time as the sun ceases to set in the west or migrating birds no longer ply dark heaven ..." Lanham exhales a heavy soul into his words, "I hope. I watch. I breathe."

Murmuration

a wave of dark birds
surges
a black feathered river
rustles
flows on eventide
undulates tree-line to horizon
soot-washed
smudged on day-failing sky
does full moon's waning
pull restless flock to roost?
shortening time fails its own patience
to offer response
as heart's glow pulses brighter in bittering cold

"Murmuration" by wildlife illustrator Ann Pease.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once surmised that our connection to nature is instinctual and eye-opening to something grander. But with that carries the assumption that we belong in nature, we assume a natural right to be there. A right many of us take for granted. Lanham, a Black American, has had a different experience, and his writing is textured by it.

Be prepared to be confused with the other black birders. Yes, there are only two of you at the bird festival. Yes, you're wearing a name tag and are six inches taller than he is. Yes, you will be called by his name at least half a dozen times by supposedly observant people who can distinguish gull molts in a blizzard. Carry your binoculars - and three forms of identification- at all times.

I never think about carrying my identification unless I need to drive a car. At least 90% of my Black American friends have been stopped by the police while jogging (the remainder do not jog). Sometimes, in a predominantly white neighborhood, not always. They tell the same story: Police stop them and say, "We had a call..." (there is always a call) 'Just wanted to check everything... let's see your ID' (who runs with an ID?), 'No ID? We have to sort this out; come with us.' So essentially, 90% of my Black friends have been told, "You do not belong here," by individuals who represent the arm of government responsible for protecting its citizens.

When Lanham writes, "Don't bird in a hoodie. Ever." or "Nocturnal birding is a no-no," he is not speaking to Emerson, me, Rachel Carson, Richard Attenborough, or anyone else who takes an instinctive belonging in nature for granted. We carry preconceived notions of who should be out in nature, and we apply those notions to ourselves.

Lanham has felt this his entire career and finds pathos in it: 

Crow poem

I watched a flock of crows
fly by,
counted forty-two black souls, then up to sixty-five,
maybe more.
Not sure whether fish or 'American
They were silent as coal,
headed to roost, I assumed,
a congregation I refused to call a murder
because profiling ain't what I do:
besides,
they was just flyin' by.

"Coloring the Conservation Conversation is my outreach mantra!" Lanham writes on his professional site. "This means considering how ethnicity and other factors impact how we see nature and conserve natural resources. As a birder, I use birds and the conservation issues surrounding them as the inspirational vehicle to connect others to the outdoors and advocate for their protection." 

Everyone belongs in nature because everyone has an unalienable right to slip into that sense of wonder where our mind unravels into question—eagerness to know but skin-tingling elation at not knowing.

Lanham expands on this wonder:

Who takes care of whom?
Knows the itches to scratch?
Can find the place where you retreat
within your own wildness to escape-
but leave you there trusting you'll return?
The right or wrong questions to ask?
It's all a matter of timing-
the who and what of our when-ness.
The birds find their own answers to these questions.
Simply living by codes we can't quite figure out
except to guess, really.
I'm okay with not knowing it all these days.
Five cerulean eggs lain warm in a cup fashioned
of pine straw and rootlets wound just so
are proof of my human-built conceit.
Who taught them this?

From "Egg Blues"

Everyone has a bird story because birds are often synanthropic animals that have modified their behavior to benefit from human civilization. They live above us and among us.

My friend Bird, named after Anne Lamott's excellent guide to writing fiction Bird by Bird. He visited me daily in my old office.

Everyone has a bird story. Everyone should have a tree story, an animal story, a night in the woods where the sky opens up and flings your soul in all directions - story.  As we must "wait for nature with open palms," we must also venture out with open minds. There is room for all humans to form bird stories.