Broken Wing

by Budbill, David; Saaf, Donald;

  Now the tree swallow chicks fledge, and both the adults and the young swoop and twitter through the garden, eating insects caught on the wing in mid-air and on the ground. Oh, isn’t The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains glad to have all these birds here helping him with his summer garden?

  The hummingbirds and their young zoom and dart, loop and twirl through the apple trees, past The Man’s head as he sits on his porch. They perform their acrobatic aerial displays all day long, drinking from the feeders, fighting and playing.

  In the morning, when he steps outside with his cup of tea and walks across the dewy grass into the rows of his garden, as his vegetables awaken and yawn toward another summer day, and he sees Broken Wing and his family scurrying among the garden rows, eating insects, and the tree swallows twitter overhead, catching insects in the air, and the purple finches sing their intense and liquid songs, and robins cluck across the lawn, and mourning doves low, and chickadees scold; and above all, when the ravens have come from their lofty aeries to the east again this morning, to see what’s changed since yesterday—and, oh, how they croak and chortle among themselves, editorializing on what The Man has done—and when, high above the ravens, the red-tailed hawk, who has left her nest to hunt—her nest, which is in the yellow birch, which hangs out over the waterfall just beyond the garden, where the deep woods begin—when the red-tailed hawk hunts and cries, and all those other birds sing, and The Man wanders among the rows of his various green friends stretching themselves into the summer, toward what they were meant to be, and the day dawns peaceful and calm and warm, then… The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains thinks about his life here in this place, thinks about his loneliness and how he moves through his days without another of his kind, and he smiles to himself, and says, “It’s okay. Right now, at least, it’s okay.”

  At times like these, The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains’ whole self goes out of himself and into the birds, the trees, the sky, his vegetables, his apples, his grapes and blueberries, the chipmunks in the yard, the wild turkeys, the hawks, the deer and moose, the gravel in the driveway, even the red squirrels and woodchucks he has shot and killed; his self goes out of himself, and into all those things outside himself, and he loses himself. He disappears.

  Broken Wing and his family are now almost a daily occurrence in the garden. Early each morning, they descend from the high, boreal bog above the house, and come into the garden and patrol up and down the rows, looking for bugs. Now that summer is wearing on and the cabbage worms have emerged on the broccoli, collard greens, and cabbages, Broken Wing and his family spend a little extra time each morning picking these very-nearly-invisible chartreuse parasites off the blue-green leaves so much the color of themselves that The Man marvels at how Broken Wing and his family can find the leaf-lopping interlopers.

  Then, one late summer day in the middle of the afternoon, during a time when The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains is weeding and hoeing in his garden, at a moment when he has stopped to stretch his back and stand for a moment, resting on his hoe, The Man hears a faint rustling noise and feels the slightest breeze pass by his right ear. He turns his head ever so slowly and carefully to the right, toward where his right hand holds onto the hoe, and there, perching on top of the hoe handle, is Broken Wing! He is less than eighteen inches away, staring at The Man. The Man holds stock still. Only a smile moves across his face, broadening his mouth and narrowing his eyes. Then Broken Wing is into the air and away.

  The Man thinks to himself that this little visit is a message—as if Broken Wing were saying, “You and I, my friend, can get a little closer than most birds and humans do, but when I am here with my family, no such thing can be.”

  The Man chuckles to himself as he wanders among his plants, inspecting their fruit and leaves, and sees the little dents Broken Wing and his family leave as they pick and peck the worms away. Make no mistake, The Man is not in any way complaining. He is grateful to his little rusty blackbird friend and his family for their help with his gardening, and he smiles to himself at this friendship he has with a bird.

  Summer is waning now, and The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains sits on his porch in the dying afternoon, the angle of light grown more and more oblique as the afternoon turns toward evening. As he sits there, he looks out across this tiny place in the big world, and sees the tree swallows and barn swallows and their litters of young, now grown almost to adulthood, swoop and twitter above and through the garden, catching a late-afternoon hatch of insects. And down the road, somewhere not too far away, a couple of the Bap Brothers’ cows blat, and far off on the mountainside to the east, the faint sound of a chainsaw comes and goes as the afternoon’s wind shifts direction.

  All this music, all these songs. All these different kinds of songs. And there are other songs, as well.

  The kuk-kuk-kutuck of a pileated woodpecker just beyond the pond, in his or her usual place, off into the woods, the same place year after year, the same place for a thousand years.

  The guttural stammer of the ravens who live in the eastward mountains, and who daily come to see what The Man has done, how things have changed from the day before.

  The shrill whistle of the red-tailed hawk, so high above the house she is invisible.

  And there are the calls of the smaller, closer, more familiar summer birds. The white-throated sparrow’s eleven-note song, saying: old Sam Pea-bo-dy, Pea-bo-dy, Pea-bo-dy. The similar three- and five-note songs of the chickadee, who sings: dee-dee-dee, chick-a-dee-dee-dee; dee-dee-dee, chick-a-dee-dee. The gurgle of the yellow throat down in the wet place below the garden. The cluck of a robin. The odd and beautiful, lowing squeak of the cedar waxwing. And down across the road in the pasture, the mellifluous and liquid warble of the bobolink—this bird of the broadening fields who never comes near the house, since it is too close to the woods for this singer of open spaces.

  And added to these songs, also, is the song The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains sings, his occasional little whistle in imitation of his airborne friends, his contribution to the ageless and eternal call and response, or some little bird cry or humming song of his own: far from the music he used to make with his friends in the city, but music nonetheless.

  And beneath and among and above all this, always and constantly, that late-summer hum of insects, billions and billions of insects, all making their own individual species’ sound, all crying, singing and crying their way toward their fall graves.

  And thrown over this cornucopia of sound, as if it were a soft, translucent veil: the ever-present and delicate silence of the wilderness.

  Then, abruptly fluttering down to land on the railing of the porch, here again is Broken Wing, come to stare at The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains as he sits alone on his porch. The Man says hello and asks the little bird how he is doing, how things are going up there in the bog above the house. He asks about his wife and children, and Broken Wing, as usual, doesn’t answer, but simply looks at The Man with what seems to be a quizzical stare. Is it curiosity? Gratitude? Trust? The way Broken Wing cocks his head a little to the side. What?

  The Man could see that the primary feathers on Broken Wing’s right wing, which had jutted so sharply away from Broken Wing’s body last fall, were disappearing now, and they were slowly being replaced by new feathers growing from his healing wing. Would Broken Wing be well enough, strong enough in another couple of months, to fly south with his family, with the rest of his kind? Or would he have to spend another winter in the north?

  The air cools, and already, that autumnal cry of insects floats across the earth. These fleshy instants of a summer’s day plant seeds during harvest time, trust their futures to the earth, and prepare to go away.

  It is the end of summer, and the sun that stood high in the summer sky and baked The Man’s head passes coolly now across his shoulders, as it slides down his back, as it slides down the sky, as it slides down the season, as it slides from north to the south, as it slides down the ye
ar toward winter.

  Evening: when the day’s birds are gone and the night’s wanderers wait listening, when dark falls softly as a bird’s wing; then, beyond the meadow in the bull spruce, a barred owl, this secretive bird of the deep woods, this bird The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains has listened to every summer for so long… the barred owl, another one alone, the barred owl, alone, alone, alone, begins his dark melody to the moon.

  The year, this quick and momentary summer, this temporary interruption to the cold, tumbles down its long fall toward dark.

  September. The dawn brings air thin and clear as cellophane. Under a cloudless sky, the frost passes through his garden that knew only sun and rain, a gentle people of leaves who ripened fruit all summer. All the life that was alive in leaves and stalks, fruit and flower: these plants wither now, droop, these glorious green plants that just yesterday were so full of juice and life are corpses now, their sudden and transitory lives gone. The garden is a grave.

  Then rain. Red leaves turn white bellies to the wind. The year teeters perfectly on light’s fulcrum: the equinox. Then it sinks. In a fog, it drowns as in a sea. The varying gray, the mist, shows each ridge, each spine of mountains as separate from the others, as if row upon row of granite breakers caught in a photograph, in perpetual stillness, might roll again, might make a primal, fog-bound ocean here—miles from any water.

  Almost all the leaves are down. The popples turn yellow, and last the tamaracks, as well, in this northern place. Everything becomes gray—again. Again, the bare trees stretch their skinny fingers against the sky.

  And the birds leave; his summer friends go away. Last night, the sky filled with geese, those voices high and strange and far away, who cry: Good-bye! Good-bye! The next day: forty degrees and rain. The earth shivers in its cloudy robe. Crows swarm and go.

  Broken Wing, Broken Wing, where is Broken Wing? Alive or dead? Still here, or gone away? Broken Wing, Broken Wing, where is Broken Wing? Will I ever see you again? Broken Wing, Broken Wing, where are you, Broken Wing?

  November again. Gray. Dark. Return. Chimney smoke lies down, crawls across the meadow like a slow, soft snake. The Man is done. His apples off to market, his woodshed full of wood, his little house banked tight against the cold, the cellar full of vegetables and apples, he comes inside and washes summer from beneath his fingernails.

  Broken Wing, Broken Wing, where is Broken Wing? Alive or dead? Still here, or gone away?

  In silence now, in the dying year, he darkens like the days. He sits and falls, as leaves fall, deeper into the coming dark, into that time to watch and wonder, into the time of dream. Quiet. Quiet. Still. In the darkening afternoon, he watches stove light flicker. The earth is empty again. The long night steps slowly over the mountains. The sky steals light from both ends of the day.

  Broken Wing, Broken Wing, where is Broken Wing? Alive or dead? Still here, or gone away?

  Another gray November passed into the snows and cold of another winter and winter merged into spring and spring into summer. The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains turned to his garden, planting peas and spinach, lettuce and the brassicas, and then potatoes. After about two weeks, the potato leaves emerged already unfurled from underground, as they always do, and there again this year were the potato bugs on the surface of the soil, just waiting for the leaves.

  Early one late-June morning, as the night mists still hung in shreds like tatters of gossamer in the ravine below the garden, The Man walked to his garden to look around. There, to his surprise and delight, running up and down the rows of emerging potatoes, was a family of rusty blackbirds: a male, a female and three young. Both adults were indistinguishable from any other adult rusty blackbird. The Man looked hard at the right wing of the male bird, trying to see some sign of former injury. He could see none. As The Man approached the garden, the rusty blackbird family rose up and flew away.

  Yet on many mornings the rest of that June and July, that family, or some family, visited the garden again and again to harvest insects.

  Then, one mid-afternoon in early August as The Man sat on his porch taking a rest from his chores and finding relief from the midday sun, a rusty blackbird soared around the dooryard apple tree and landed on the porch railing. The Man froze, yet looked intently into the eyes of the rusty blackbird standing now on the porch railing. The rusty blackbird looked intently at The Man, also. Then, as suddenly as the rusty blackbird had arrived, he bounced up into the air and winged away beyond the trees.

  9. THE SPRING OF GRIEF

  In the morning, The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains awoke slowly, and while he lay there with his eyes still closed, he began to plan his day, began to think about what more chores he had to do now that summer was on the wane and fall about to arrive.

  He got out of bed, looked out the window and… what? He saw the world deep in snow. What? No. No. It can’t be. It can’t be!

  Now, The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains realized that the time from when he had gone to bed last night, through the spring and summer—the summer life of Broken Wing and his family—through the following fall, through the next winter and spring, and into the next summer, to the moment when the rusty blackbird had landed on the porch railing that August afternoon eighteen months from the time he’d gone to sleep—all of it, all of it, all had been a dream.

  How could it be a dream? How could he dream a year and a half of life in such detail? It seemed so real! Had he not seen Broken Wing and his family hunting insects in the garden? Had he not seen Broken Wing perched on the top of his hoe handle? Had he not seen spring, summer and fall all come and go? And winter and the next spring, also? Had he not seen the rusty blackbird, on that August afternoon, land on the porch railing and stare at him? Had that not been just yesterday? How could all that be only a dream?

  Yet outside the window right now, it was not August. It was the morning after a late winter storm. Yes, that storm.

  Yet, The Man wondered to himself, how could he know that this, too, this moment right now, wasn’t also just a dream? When are we awake? When are we dreaming? How can we tell one from the other? His dream had seemed at least as real as his waking! How can we tell one from the other? Right now: am I awake or am I dreaming?

  He moved into his living room and to the wood stove, where he started the morning fire.

  The storm of the day and the night before had passed. The barometer was high again. The new day dawned clear and bright and calm, as if yesterday and last night had never visited this place. Yet one look out the window gave evidence of the storm’s passing and effect. A new landscape shone bright under the morning sun.

  The Man got dressed for the out-of-doors. He had to lean hard against the storm door to move it even a little against the two feet of snow piled against it. When he had opened it enough to squeeze out, he worked his way to the woodshed door, opened it, and stepped into the snowless woodshed, where he found his shovel. And as he did these things, he had a feeling he’d just done these things. He knew he’d just done these things. He felt confused, disturbed.

  As he went about digging out from the storm—there must have been somewhere between two and three feet of new snow—his attention and worry turned to Broken Wing.

  He dug new paths to the dooryard feeders, cleaned them off, and filled them up with seeds. With his tractor, he plowed the lane—filled in during the night from bank to bank with snow-drifts—down to the road.

  Then The Man came inside and made a cup of tea and ate his breakfast. And all the time, all he could think about was Broken Wing. Was he still alive? And if he was, where was he?

  Slowly, the birds descended from the softwood thickets above the house and returned to the feeders. First the chickadees, then the nuthatches, then the downy and hairy woodpeckers; then a flock of evening grosbeaks swooped in, announcing with showy aplomb that they, too, had made it through the night. All morning, The Man watched for a medium-sized rusty blackbird. He watched and worried.

  Morn
ing passed into afternoon, afternoon into evening. The Man kept going to the window to look out at the feeders, hoping to see his little rusty blackbird friend, but Broken Wing did not appear.

  He cooked and ate his dinner listlessly. That evening, he tried to distract himself with reading. Nothing would do. Where was Broken Wing? Surely, if he had survived last night, he would have appeared somewhere, sometime, today.

  Evening and night and the next morning, and still no Broken Wing. All that day passed, and The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains did little else but watch out the window.

  “If only I’d captured him the day of the storm, down there under the white spruce tree! He was within arm’s reach! I could have grabbed him. I know he would have let me. Why didn’t I save him from his own wildness? I could have put him in my pocket, or carried him in my hands, up out of that storm. I could have brought him inside, put him in the cage. Just for one night. If I had done that, he would be alive today! This is all my fault. I am to blame. I should have saved him. Why didn’t I help him? Where was I when he really needed me? Why didn’t I help him?

  “Or what if I had captured him, and had him cupped in my hands, and was struggling through the blizzard back toward the house when he began to squirm, trying to get free of my clutches—what if he’d done that, and had gotten away, and then was out there stranded in the storm, with no protection at all? If that had happened, I most certainly would be to blame for his death. What if that had happened?”

  The days passed into weeks, and still no sign of Broken Wing.

  The Man gave up hope. His dream of Broken Wing’s survival and prosperity had been a false prophecy, to be sure. “My dream deceived me. Wishful thinking and true prophesy are not the same thing,” he said to himself.

  The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains knew that Broken Wing was dead.

  Yet every morning, when The Man woke up, after the birds got up and began to move about in the dooryard, he still watched out the window, waiting and hoping that by some miracle, Broken Wing might appear. But Broken Wing never did appear.