.

beatitudo

art is an expression; so why
do people get upset about it,
saying it has to be this way or
that? art is a live-and-let-live
kind of thing, a process perceived
as expression and if you don't
like it, turn the page, walk away.
chill. find your own deep freeze.

it is soft september and we are
sitting beside the bay, he and I,
perched on two rocks nestled in
a small valley with the water
level at our feet. it is so low that
a group of tripod-trekking
photographers currently call it
'the mudflats'. their two foot
long lenses are covered in
camophlage casings.

"lowest it's been in five years",
one of them says. these mudflats
currently attract photographers
from all over this region. they
come hunting for shorebirds, new
migrants like phaloropes and egrets,
little lesser yellow legs and raptors.
poetic names slip off their tongues
like water from a wing but they
are watchers, patient observers
of wing-ed behaviour who firmly
plant their moments in the mud
and rest their eyes on the empty
skies above. every few minutes,
an inaudible alarm provokes a
huge flock of sparrows to leap
into the air, twist and circle a
tree for cover, then seconds
later drop back down for more
ground-level foraging. what
do they hear that we can't?

out of nowhere, the trumpeters
arrive with seven foot wing spans.
bright yellow tags flash sun in our
eyes, the whir of white flight splashes
and skids an oncoming spray at us.
black eyes are full of expectation,
ready to pose for handfuls of corn
and more than willing to meet us
half-way. but shrinking inland
habitats (diminishing wetlands
sacrificed to capital d development)
drive these migrants to the great-lake
shores. one photographer adds,
"they tried to restore this marsh
five years ago, replanting what
used to grow naturally. but this
summer, after five years!
everything stopped growing.
all of it started dying. and they
don't know why. we think we can
fix things. but we can't. and each
time we try, we just create more
imbalances."

above us, the fluid world of city-to-city
spills across a high level bridge. our
mudflat point-of-view miniaturizes all
the cars that parade humanity like honey
through a funnel. metaphors abound
but the difference between there and
here is unquantifiably and immeasurably
a world away. I'd like the life that some
of them lead, travelling the world to its
remotest regions for the sake of tracing
major migratory flightpaths, mount-everest
moments, learning-the-world from its
avian wanderers and re-thinking the
notion of self.

we've just hiked some local trails
that t/race the edge of this dying
wetland, listened to its wet shoe
silences and appreciated the lack
of mechanized noise. here we sit,
taking it all in as if to value the
many levels of distance we think
we've gained from the unstoppable
steel and concrete conjestion above
us, happy that this moment separates
us from the parade. from here, time
finally fits the pace of water and sky.

meanwhile, the beat of pop culture
creates a veil that fractures the whole;
it's not our true skin whereas these
birds have been always been here,
for millions of years they've been
flying the skies of this planet, living
on the wind and seeing the world
from a higher perspective.

but the moment returns. he rests
his bare leg against mine. our feet
redefine the edge of a muddy shore,
one that's busy with birds and cameras.
but wind and water is all I feel, and in
that space I cannot tell where he ends
and the rest begins.