THIS POST IS FOR THE BIRDS

January 5 is National Bird Day, a day to…. Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman (alias Clark Kent, alias George Reeves)! What’s more, January 5 is Reeves’ birdday — er, birthday! Of such happy ‘coincidences,’ ideas for posts are born.

No doubt you are too young to remember George Reeves as Superman in the early 1950’s TV series, The Adventures of SUPERMAN. These many years later, the above Intro-clip seems either unintentionally laughable or laughably camp, but the series was highly popular and made Reeves a national celebrity. Unlike Superman, however, the actor wasn’t made of steel and self-destructed (took his own life) in 1959 at the age of 45.

So much for the coupling of the birds and the Reeves. Bee-lieve me, the rest of this post is strictly for the birds.

BIRDS OF A TETHER

Chancing to glance out my kitchen window
one early spring morning, I notice two robins
in the yard battling over the prize one of them
has extracted from the ground. Having always
thought of robins as harmonious birds, I watch,
fascinated, as the feathered fiends engage in a
furious tug of worm to claim (you would think)
the last night crawler on the face of the earth.

Finally, one of the orange-breasted warriors prevails,
and down the hatch goes the winner’s breakfast.
I don’t know if the victor was the one who found
the worm first. All I know is the ill-fated victim was
the one who didn’t have much choice in the matter.

But let us not end on a downer. Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap; they sing and tweet. So let’s all sing like the birdies sing:

Yes, my friends, there was a once-upon-a-time when tweets were carefree, joyful and strictly for the birds/bird lovers. What has this world come to? Tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet!