The Battle of Four Birds' Nests

Spring of 2018 will go down in Haney History as “The Battle of Four Bird’s Nests.”  Every year since we have lived here a robin has visited our gazebo in the Spring and built a nest tucked under the protection of its roof.  The kids love to be lifted up so they can see the pale bluish green eggs and watch the robin make forays for food once they have hatched, the nest full up of oversized yellow beaks reacting to any sound that might be their mother’s return.

If we are out in the yard she will sit on the fence, a tree branch, or the gazebo railing and chirp loudly at us as if to say “Go away!  Go away!  I have to feed my babies and you are making me nervous!”  Elias was four when it first happened and Anya has followed in his steps as a yearly witness to this phenomenon.

This year was no exception.  The robin came and built its nest in the same spot and laid its eggs.  But this year the nest was ransacked by some unknown animal and the nest unceremoniously dumped onto the floor of the gazebo.  This happened three different times as the robin stubbornly rebuilt its nest.  

At some point Anya saw some crows on the street in front of our house messing with something that she discovered were broken robin egg shells.  She was tearful and mad at the same time surmising the crows were the culprit, though they may have simply been opportunists.  Squirrels and chipmunks are active in our back yard, but the rabbits get a pass as they are not well known for their climbing skills.

Then a final nest was built in a different spot out on the cross beams of the gazebo and that one remained, but no eggs or baby birds have been forthcoming.  Today I gathered up the four aborted nests and added them to my lawn waste after mowing and clearing out some low hanging branches.  It was sad not having any cheeping baby birds this year.  Only wrecked nests and the realization that life doesn’t always go as we would like.

One Night in Korea

I spent two years of my life in Korea, not moving forward, not moving backward, only living in a kind of dream-like limbo in my early 20’s.  During the day I was with American soldiers who I had little to nothing in common with and at night and on the weekends I was with Koreans who I felt more connected to but still felt the weight of a language and cultural gap.  I did not want to return to the States after my one year tour and so I volunteered to extend my time there for my full two year commitment to the Army.  

I don’t know what I hoped to accomplish, only I did not know what the next step was to be in my life.  In this regard, I hid from my stateside-self and his future by staying overseas in a magical land of strange and exotic experiences.  Every time I went out with my Korean friends and their friends I felt special and was treated as such by virtue of my non-Korean-ness.  The experience was at once exhilarating and terribly melancholy, trapped as I was in a cage of my own making.

I tried to make the best of the Army part without fully buying into what it meant to be a soldier.  I was the best runner in my brigade and maybe even the division, a good marksman, and great at land navigation to the extent I was the only private in my unit to achieve the coveted Expert Infantryman’s Badge.  But I had no intentions to serve past my two year commitment and the NCO’s could sense this in me and it generated friction between me and those above me in the chain of command.  I had a reputation for disappearing at the earliest possible moment of being off duty (although you were never really “off duty” in Korea).  One of my fellow platoon members described me as a “shadow” who could slip off without anyone noticing.

Part of this shadow-like behavior had to do with an ongoing attempt to immerse myself as much as possible in the Korean culture, language, and geography.  I built up a whole network of Korean friends throughout Dongducheon, down through Uejongbu, and stretching all the way to Seoul utilizing bus, train, and subway.  It was like a series of safe houses that I could crash at on the weekends.  The other soldiers in my unit were self-confined to the base itself and a small part of Dongducheon just outside the main gate that catered to the “needs” and wants of Americans.  They suspected that I wandered far afield, but I never talked of it with them in order to protect my hard won freedom that could easily be taken away if proof surfaced of what I was doing.

So, this poem “One Night in Korea” is just a glimpse of one particular night that looked like so many other nights while I was living there except for the peculiar incident of sneaking into the base pool after midnight and drowning myself in its glowing waters.  Which, in retrospect, was breathtakingly foolish but not out of character for me at that time.

I was young and free

to roam and do

what I pleased

though hopelessly lost

in a foreign land,

a soldier of fortune

looking to connect despite

incompatible voltages.

Chin-gu’s who thought

in a different language,

peering through narrowed 

eyes while chain smoking,

nighttime neon glow

with no lack of laughter,

coffee, tea, maek-ju, so-ju,

and the smell of kim-chee.

Until I found myself alone,

separated from so much 

and from so many,

wide-eyed and weary,

the long walk back 

to the barracks still ahead.

I was drawn to the glow of 

the base swimming pool.

It called to my spirit,

a beatific blue-green light,

just past the witching hour.

I scaled the high fence,

squatting Korean-style

at the water’s edge

peeled down to my boxers

and my burdens.

Time took a time out

as I balanced between

life and death,

strife and breath,

teetering

:

tottering

:

tumbling

:

all things diverging 

all things converging

my body floating

betwixt and between.

***

Pretending to Fly

Hanging dead from a string

pretending to be in flight.

Trying to catch up with those 

above me, only to realize

that they are also dead 

and it is only self-delusion 

that keeps my spot in line.

***

Just reminding myself...

... that kids are not accoutrements.  They do not exist to bolster our egos.  They deserve our blood, sweat, and tears.  They deserve every ounce of selflessness we can muster.  We do not own them.  They are not property.  We should not put them into a box of our own making, disrespecting their uniqueness and singular beauty.  

They will not ruin our lives.  They *will* ruin the lifelessness of an existence we imagine is about simply enjoying ourselves while our souls skitter along the surface, unable to penetrate into the depths of what being human is all about.

It is about love and love is not a feeling that changes with the fluctuation of chemicals in our brain.  It is deeper than that and transcends biology or circumstance.  It is about the privilege of taking on the suffering of another person.  This is something our culture does not understand.

  

Not that I am some expert, heavens no!  But I see it all around me and feel it gnawing at my edges trying to get in which terrifies me.  Our kids dangle at the precipice of our selfishness, oblivious to the possibility of disaster at arm’s reach.  

***

Charity Rolls Her Window Down

She sat at the red light 

where the man held the sign

that said his car needed fixed

so he could go back to work.

I felt the purr of my own 

trustworthy vehicle under me,

the soft edges of a robust credit card 

nestled in my cashless wallet.

She had pulled in front of me

without signaling her intent.

She had sat too long at the previous 

light, likely looking at her phone.

But when her hand extended from 

her window with a dollar bill

lightly held for the man to take

I suddenly felt all was forgiven.

That whatever she did or didn’t do 

(apart from crashing into me) 

I would accept graciously from this 

mom smiling in her rearview mirror.

***