Episode 10 - Cold Mountain Home of Crow

Conquering bird issues. Why Crows are incredible. Much better than peacocks and pigeons. 

A transcript of this Haiku Life podcast together with photos will be available on the mygreatergood.com website.

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome to the Haiku Live Podcast, where we take a little exploration into some abbreviated moments. Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry. It is traditionally focused on nature and captures a fleeting moment within the space of three lines and a 5-7-5 syllable count. In a world so overwhelmingly immersive, a haiku is a moment of respite. These haiku are mine, moments of life, thoughts in the ether. Let me say at the start of this first non-poodle related haiku and podcast that I miss him. I feel an almost betrayal writing and talking on this podcast on a subject that is not poodle. My gratitude for him and to him remains always. Now cold mountain home of Crow, a light on Christmas tree, whistler painted ice. I used to be very scared of birds. I could look at them happily enough, but I also had these irrational visions of them flying around inside the house all panicky. Has anyone ever watched that modern family episode back in the day when a bird got into Mitchell and Cam's apartment? I am Mitchell in that episode. Pathetically hysterical. I've done a lot of work with animal rescues and an opportunity came up a couple of years ago to volunteer at a songbird rescue called Wildlife Center of North Georgia. This organization is run by a fabulous woman called Erilyn Martin. She takes injured and orphaned birds, she rehabs them and releases them back into their territories. I grabbed the chance to conquer my bird issues and I loved my time volunteering there. At one point someone brought a crow in. It was not in a good shape, it had severe mobility issues, although nothing was broken. It was the first time I ever held a crow. I would go in every day, hold the crow in my lap, massage its neck and legs, stroke its feathers, talk to it. Try to do some light physical therapy. It improved tremendously and some of my happiest times were sitting holding that crow. The story does not have a happy ending. I was absolutely devastated when it passed unexpectedly. The next day I arrived there and I parked in the street, which was actually not where I usually would park, and I walked down the driveway. There by itself in the middle of the driveway was a massive, shiny, beautiful crow feather. Nothing else around it. It was like it was just waiting there for me. A sign from my crow. The crow's death dulled my enthusiasm completely. To this day it makes me cry. It was almost like I had completed whatever lessons I needed to learn there, and I left. But I take the crow with me in my heart all the time. I love crows. At Starbucks in the morning I throw food out for them, and sometimes it's a whole murder out there. We like to spend Christmas through New Year in Whistler, Canada. It's one of our most favorite places in the world and a ski village to rival any European winter fairyland. We stay in a village apartment on the top level. We eat French toast in the morning and throw the extra pieces out over the rooftop below. The crows wait and watch and descend en masse. They are smart, smart birds. Actually, they are from the very intelligent corvid family. They exhibit problem solving, tool use and complex social behaviors comparable to a child probably around seven years old. Apparently they can recognize faces, hold grudges, and pass knowledge across generations. So crows are very cool creatures, and I am honored to have gotten close to one, as much as it subsequently broke me. I wrote this episode's haiku watching a crow sit on a Christmas lit pine in Whistler, cold mountain home of crow, a light on Christmas tree, Whistler painted ice. The Whistler reference is obviously to the Canadian ski village, but could also be an imaginative vision of the late nineteenth century artist splashing paint across the snowy peaks. Although he is in fact more known for peacocks and pigeons.com website. See you later!