.

another grey day
and a small storefront space
in the heart of a local antique
district; something about the
confluence of light on late
afternoon snow glowing gold
under streetlamps. Monday at
dusk in a dingy shop filled
with old objects haphazzardly
strewn on a floor one could
trip over, and me snaking my
way past so many useless
curiousities.

treasure-seeking? the thrill
of random discovery? or some
subjective notion of history?
maybe I was just avoiding home
with its always-five-o'clock
reminder of one lost angel
and that seemingly incessant
mood of late afternoons, its
northern sunless sense of
is-it-only-January? an oppressive
low-light malaise accompanied
by the dark-at-dinnertime drive
to anywhere but home. and home
with its shadowy remainder of
one more valued voice now gone
from my life.

while searching for nothing in
particular (or maybe everything
at once?) and of course not finding
it, my eyes turned streetward with
one reluctant palm pressed against
the handle. I was one step away
from pulling cold air into the
dusty shop and ready to hear
brass chimes hit the glass hard,
that thick all-encompassing
clink-thud defeat of a nebulous
search. but through lowered lids
and a sideways glance something
pulled me back in. the shop was
otherwise empty but for one man
leaning quite heavily against
a glass display case. he was
waiting for the owner to show
him a watch with a thick leather
strap with 30-ish intensity for
something so clearly unextraordinary.
would he buy it or walk away? I
inched closer to the counter but
his eyes were what I really wanted.
dark and heavily lidded as if
trapped in some bottomless abyss.
and the nervous way his fingers
tapped the glass. big hands, I
thought. and substantial eyes.

call it hope but the owner
presented me with an unwound
miniature cuckoo clock (5 x 4 inches);
it was the notion of time without
progression, the word 'Germany'
stamped onto its small brass face.
small weights and chains were
intact but the miniscule wind-up
key was missing; this was time
as pure possibility. a watchmaker-
friend might know how to replace
the key, I thought.

four hand-carved leaves framed the
clockface and denoted traditional
Black Forest design. at the top was
a wooden white bird with red wings,
a yellow-billed cuckoo who slid
sideways to tap each new hour
against the seeds of a wooden flower.
at the bottom of the clock, a little
wooden nest with 3 eggs. for a moment,
I forgot about the man with bottomless
eyes and asked how much. the owner
stated a number, I countered with
a lesser one and we confirmed the
sale with a smile.

a miniature cuckoohouse clock;
how could I not take it home?
from the Greek dramatist,
Aristophanes (450-380 BC.)
the expression "cloud-cuckoo-land"
originated (meaning if someone
indulges in an absurdly over-optomistic
fantasy or makes an impractical
or utopian plan, they are living
in cloud-cuckoo-land).

was that me? living in a cloistered
world of words with no time zones?
in A's ancient comedy (entitled
The Birds), birds built an imaginary
capital city in the air which they
named Nephelokokkygia, a name made
from the Greek words for cloud
(nephele) and cuckoo (kokkux).
regardless, this unworkable time
piece somehow lifted me out of
my grey slush sensibility. this,
in concert with the man who wore
bottomless eyes.

I love how one idea leaps so unexpectedly
into another. mystery surrounds the cuckoo
bird, first in terms of how young cuckoos
actually learn to migrate. the parent
birds typically migrate from Europe in
late August, yet the young leave much
later in the fall. but the question
remains, how do the young know enough
to migrate, or even know where to go?
is the impulse to migrate a function
of genetic imprinting, nature over
nurture? according to migration expert
Weidensaul, migration is a general
function of food availability, rather
than weather conditions. still. the
details of when and where are
traditionally taught to the young
by parent birds. therefore, to say
that cuckoo beginnings are rather
anonalous is an understatement.

rebels and renegades with curious
parenting skills, the European cuckoos
don't bother to build their own nests,
but surreptitously drop their eggs in
another bird's nest. nor do cuckoos
incubate, feed or rear their young.
ornithologists call it brood parasitism.
once hatched, cuckoo fleglings are
hard-wired to manipulate their
surrogate parents (which can be
any one of 50 different species).
for example, hours after hatching,
the baby interloper routinely begins
to rid the nest of its competition.
whenever it comes in contact with
another egg, it pushes it to the
side of the nest and tips it over
the edge. feathery little Damians.
the young cuckoo's insistent cry,
coupled with the red gape and
distinct markings of its open beak
act as an intense stimulant for
the adoptive parents who run
themselves ragged trying to satisfy
the baby cuckoo's capacity for food,
thereby indavertently placing its
need before the other (legitimate)
nestlings.

finally, the cuckoo's prompt April
return to Europe from Africa is
timed so predictably that Greek
historian Hesiod advised farmers
to plow the fields when they heard
cuckoos sing. harbinger of spring,
even if their call is clear their
exact location remains elusive,
thus sending many birdwatchers
throughout the ages on a so-called
fool's erand.

so.

from dusk to dark eyes, from timeless
clocks to anomalous cuckoos, and angels
adrift, the meaning of this confluence
eludes me. perhaps it suggests something
about emphemerality (as opposed to
permanence) or the physics of friendship?
both abstract notions that are ttoo deep
in mind to unravel. maybe it's the idea
that energy is never lost or destroyed
but only transformed (like the distance
between a dormant clock and some random
guy with bottomless eyes buying time
as a watch). but whatever I think I know
in my deep winter drift, one thing is
clear. I won't lose what I, so seemingly
long ago, gained from my five o'clock
friend. some things are immeasurable.
and remembering this, that no matter
how deep anyone dives, at some point
the surface always beckons one back.

it's a matter of time.

"It is not the walls of your library,
decked with ivory and glass, that I need,
but rather the resting place in your heart,
wherein I have not stored books, but I have
of old put that which gives value to books,
a store of thoughts from books of mine."
(Spinoza)