The birds don't alter space, they reveal it

White-cheeked barbet, nesting on my Silk Cotton tree

For Abhisheka, with gratitude

I have never been able to meditate. But I can tune into Barbet Station anytime, anywhere. :)  Above the loud traffic sounds, beyond all that is going on around, I can still identify a white-cheeked barbet. If I suddenly look distracted when you are talking to me, I have picked up a barbet signal. :)  

You can always hear what you want to hear. I hear birds. I hear barbets. This city is still a magical place for me. When things are not good, I go for a walk. And I tune into birds. I move from bird to bird as I walk along. I can more or less identify every single bird call in the neighbourhood by now. Thanks to friends who really know birds - my teachers who changed my life. I can never repay the debt I owe them.  

There is a time to save the world. Fight the good fight. Stand at street corners with placards and raise slogans. Like Rambert the journalist in Camus' 'The Plague', I would "feel ashamed to seek a merely personal happiness."

And there is a time to stop. And tune into bird stations. The barbets. The bulbuls. The cuckoos. The magpies. The kites. The mynahs. And the shikaras, if you are really lucky. And remember that you are one thing among so many others in this universe, your power equally matched by your powerlessness. 

Barbets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IpU_dLropY

The birds don't alter space, they reveal it

Li-Young Lee

http://whilethereisstilltime.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-birds-dont-alter-space-they-reveal.html