Positively Hitchcockian

I generally go through life thinking I have an unspoken agreement with a lot of things.  Pretty much if you don't bother me, I don't bother you.  One of the things I have this agreement with is birds.  I don't really think about them one way or another except when they crap on my car and I shake my fist at the sky, but some birds are cool.  Some of them have super powers and can talk and stuff.  Peacocks are all right because they're nice to look at.  Sparrows are unassuming and happy simply if you give them a crumb of bread.  Turkeys and eagles are patriotic so I have no beef with them.  Parrots are only cool because they are riding the shoulders of pirates and Monty Python once did a hilarious sketch about one.

I know people think most birds are not so smart, but I am convinced we are not giving them enough credit.  Some birds are evil and with that evil comes strategizing capabilities.  The other day I was walking, minding my own business, in a busy area of town.  I had to get to a crosswalk to cross a busy intersection.  Off to the side were all these pigeons gathered around a tree and a telephone pole.  There were quite a lot of them, but I didn't even think "hey, that's a large group of pigeons."  That's how much I was minding my own business.  Suddenly they all took off at once.  No big deal, but I tried to steer clear from walking directly under them so I could avoid any droppings.  They flew past me, so I thought I was safe.  I was still headed for the crosswalk.  Suddenly back they flew in the direction whence they came.  Again, I edged away for scatalogical reasons.  I shook my head.  Weird birds.

The cross walk was only about 15 feet away at this point when they took off again.  These pigeons were everywhere.  There was no escape.  They were pumping the air like DJ Paulie D on the dance floor.  These freaking pigeons would take off and land, take off and land, but when they landed, they barely even touched the tree or the telephone pole before they were up and off again.  My next thought was, maybe we're about to have an earthquake.  Animals can sense these things and these birds were going nuts.  But by the time I was waiting for the light to change, the earth had not quaked once.  These crazed pigeons were treading air.  Two of them clawed at the bar above the "don't walk" sign.  They were looking at me.  This was highly disturbing.  My next and final thought on the matter was whether there was any factual basis for the movie The Birds and what it would feel like to be pecked to death by a dirty air rat.

Luckily, the light changed before I could find out.  As I ran across the street, I looked back and saw they had taken off again, this time with another poor soul trapped in their whirlpool of feathers.

Triangles

Three triangles of birds crossed
Over the enormous ocean which extended
In winter like a green beast.
Everything just lay there, the silence,
The unfolding gray, the heavy light
Of space, some land now and then.
Over everything there was passing
A flight
And another flight
Of dark birds, winter bodies
Trembling triangles
Whose wings,
Frantically flapping, hardly
Can carry the gray cold, the desolate days
From one place to another
Along the coast of Chile.

I am here while from one sky to another
The trembling of the migratory birds
Leaves me sunk inside myself, inside my own matter
Like an everlasting well
Dug by an immovable spiral.
Now they have disappeared
Black feathers of the sea
Iron birds
From steep slopes and rock piles
Now at noon
I am in front of emptiness. It’s a winter
Space stretched out
And the sea has put
Over its blue face
A bitter mask.

-Pablo Neruda