Sparrow Envy

by J. Drew Lanham

  Chiricahua

  Majestically jagged, savagely dragon-toothed Southeast Arizona mountains named for a band of courageous and freedom-loving native people, the Apache Indians. They are famed for the exotic birds they harbor.

  Cicada

  The bug-eyed bugs that begin an incessant—and either pleasantly numbing or irritating—buzzing in the heat of the summer and do not cease until frost freezes them. They emerge from the ground after years of waiting like aliens to climb into trees—buzz; suck sap; buzz; mate; buzz and die.

  Clearcut

  A forestry term describing a place where all the trees are cut down at once. Clearcuts can be bad and scars on the landscape when carelessly done, or, when managed with care, rich areas of regeneration for a forest to begin again.

  Conservation

  The intense desire to save something in abundance, left better for future generations who you will not know. See also Love and Care.

  Dum Spiro Spero (L.)

  “While I breathe, I hope.” 1. Motto on the seal of my home state of South Carolina, which is much more admirable than being known for secession to preserve slavery. 2. What I, and most Black people, are thinking when being stopped by the police. See also George Floyd.

  Ecology

  Us and them; every living and non-living thing linked in. Same air, same water, same soil, same earth, same fate.

  See also Marvin Gaye, “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)”

  Field Mark

  A part of something that helps you know what the whole thing is. Cardinal beak thickness versus warbler beak thinness, dazzling feather color, a beautiful flute-ish song, waving a Confederate flag claiming, “Heritage not hate.”

  Holocene

  The ten or twelve millenia (an epoch) just passed between woolly mammoths (Pleistocene) and islands of plastic trash (see also Anthropocene). It was the geologic recess between humans being eaten by large beasts and humans exacting revenge now, by “extincting” all the large beasts leftover that didn’t get them first.

  Icterid

  A blackbird but not always a black bird—or even all black. Redwings, rusties, Brewer’s, grackles, tri-coloreds, yellow-headed’s, orioles, troupials, oropendolas, meadowlarks, cowbirds—but not crows or ravens or starlings. And no, they don’t all look alike either.

  Lesser Beasts

  Anything without feathers or wings. Everything else but those beings called birds. Mostly me.

  Murmuration

  The mesmerizing wavelike & fluid unified movement of a flock of birds or school of fish. If you say the word to yourself thir-teen times you will begin to feel what it means.

  Negro (arch.)

  Term formerly used by some to describe those of Sub-Saharan Black African heritage. Frequently degraded to “nigra” as the bastard term derived from “nigger.” Eventually evolved to colored, black, and presently, African-American or Black. James Baldwin was not yours.

  Octaroon (arch.)

  An allegedly archaic term mostly used in Louisiana and portions of the Caribbean archipelago to describe a person of questionable color with a drop (or “taint”) of Black (negro) blood from a bi-racial grandparent which would render them legally unworthy of humane consideration. See also quadroon; mulatto; half-breed; high yellow; light-skinned; milkman’s baby; John James Audubon.

  Pandemic

  Hell on earth in the form of a “novel” coronavirus likely transmitted between bats and the humans possibly eating them. See also COVID-19, also plague.

  Racism

  The systemic and institutionalized hatred of another person or population because of ethnicity or race. Celebrated as a “Lost Cause” in the United States by bitter losers and conspiracists. Exacted for four centuries on Black folks and even longer against Indigenous and First Nations people. See also original sin and cultural denial.

  Redstart

  A tiny finger-sized sprite belonging to a group of birds called wood warblers. Redstarts are named as such because they are obscenely attired in black and orange (guys) or brown and yellow (gals) and appear as flashes of fire against the new green of spring sprouting trees.

  Rutty

  The act of being “rutted up;” a sex-crazed season when buck white-tailed deer fight one another, rub trees, piss in the dirt, and seek does so that they can make more of themselves.

  Salidago & Bidens (aka goldenrod & tickseed; sun-yellow, wild-flower)

  Fall beauties that become prettier with increased negligence and reckless abandon.

  Sandpipers & plovers

  Smallish, cute & typically brownish beach-dwelling birds that chase waves, skitter-scatter across mudflats, and flash-fly in moments of wanderlust to settle on the next parcel of sand—or another continent.

  Senesce

  To wither and die over time. Sometimes brilliantly and gloriously, like autumn leaves, but mostly just a drying up and fading to brown to return to soil. Plants do it. So will we.

  Sundown Town

  Municipalities, towns, villages, or crossroads where by formal declaration or well-heeded rumor, Black people were (are?) to be out of the area before sundown. “Don’t let the sun set on you here nigger!” would be the definitive phrase in such a place. Not restricted to the American South. See also range map restriction; range limitation; Green Book.

  Timberdoodle (a.k.a woodcock)

  A squat, short-legged, long-beaked, googly-eyed game bird found in places most people would rather not go, such as briary tangles and mirey mucks; sometimes called a bog bat.

  Towhee

  A large, jaunty sparrow that kicks about in the leaf litter singing “Drink Your Tea!” Where I’m from, they used to be called “rufous-sided towhees,” which was a much more accurate and frankly, seductive name until the gene jockeys and name-taggers decided otherwise. Geez. My grandmother called them “Jorees”’ cause that’s what their songs sounded like to her.

  Wood thrush

  A brown-backed, spot-breasted & angelic bird-soul that can throw three self-harmonized notes into the spring air to seduce the unwary wanderer. They are sirens of the forest. I love them.

  Wren

  Small brown birds with cocked tails and loud songs. They are the Joe Pesci’s of the feathered kind, generally loud and unwilling to be ignored. You laughin’ at them? Don’t.

  Zoom

  A reality twisting torture chamber of horrors born of viral quarantine (see also Pandemic), facilitating virtual engagement from the waist up. Best known phrase “You’re on mute.”

  FOUNDED IN Spartanburg, South Carolina in 1995, Hub City Press has emerged as the South’s premier independent literary press. Hub City is interested in books with a strong sense of place and is committed to finding and spotlighting extraordinary new and unsung writers from the American South. Our curated list champions diverse authors and books that don’t fit into the commercial or academic publishing landscape.

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