Broken Wing

by Budbill, David; Saaf, Donald;

  And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars

  And they pulse again with a keener sting—

  I know why he beats his wing!

  I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,

  When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,

  When he beats his bars and would be free;

  It is not a carol of joy or glee,

  But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,

  But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—

  I know why the caged bird sings.

  “Yes,” thought The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains, “Yes, I too know how a pain still throbs in the old, old scars, and yes, I also know why the caged bird beats his wing. Yes. Yes. I know why the caged bird sings.”

  Beginning that day, The Man kept an especial eye out for the hated Arnold. And much to his surprise and delight, he realized now that it seemed the quarrelsome blue jays were also standing guard as they never had before; for now, whenever Arnold approached the door-yard, the blue jays set up a terrible racket, a squawking holler, the likes of which they usually saved for a marauding hawk or owl.

  Quietly and to himself, The Man apologized to the blue jays for all the nasty thoughts he had harbored toward them over the years—well, maybe not all the nasty thoughts. The Blue Jay Boys were still the pushiest, most obnoxious denizens of the apple orchard. Yet The Man could see now, in spite of their noisy, quarrelsome and overbearing nature, that they, too, were an important and welcome part of this dooryard community of many birds and one man. They were the watch-birds of the bird yard.

  In fact, one morning about a week after The Man had released Broken Wing, he saw Arnold coming up the driveway, but before he could put some clothes on and run outside to drive the cat away, he saw a squadron of blue jays take off from an apple tree and attack Arnold the way small birds do to crows who are out to steal eggs, or the way crows attack an owl. The blue jay squadron yelled and screamed and hollered and dive-bombed Arnold into a dither of confusion, and sent the hapless cat running down the road.

  The following weeks passed uneventfully, and Broken Wing seemed to recover from his latest insult and injury faster than he had last fall. In just a couple of weeks, it seemed he was almost flying again.

  The end of winter was upon the land, and the first faint hints of spring hovered at the corners of the days. In the late afternoon, the light lasted longer in the southern sky. In the morning in the east, “the rosy-fingered dawn” brought with it now the promise of something different, something to do with warmth and life. The house eaves dripped. Down cellar, potatoes began to sprout, onions collapsed, winter squashes molded and fell in upon themselves.

  7. THE STORM

  The next day dawned partly cloudy and still. As The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains moved about his early-morning living room, he noticed that the barometer—which he reset every night before going to bed—had fallen dangerously low. Then, as he drank his tea and looked out the window, he noticed that there were more birds in the dooryard than there usually were at this time of the morning, and all of the birds were feeding more actively than usual. They all moved from feeder to branch and back to feeder again quickly, almost frantically. The barometer, the unusual activity of the birds, and “that feeling in his bones” all told The Man that a storm was coming.

  All morning, the clouds thickened in the north and west, as if someone were laying out blankets on the surface of the sky—gray blankets, each blanket a shade grayer than the last—until by early afternoon, the sky had the steel-gray coloration that everyone in these parts knew meant serious snow.

  By noon, the barometer had fallen even lower. Around two o’clock, in the stillness, the calm that so often precedes a storm, it began very gently to snow. Light flakes floated down leisurely through the still air, so peaceful, so quiet. By three o’clock, the snow fell more thickly; by four, the wind began to blow. All The Man could think about was Broken Wing. Where was he? Would he make it through this storm? What could The Man do to help his wounded friend?

  Then he remembered that at about noon, he thought he’d seen Broken Wing glide his awkward cock-winged flight from one of the dooryard apple trees down across the lane and into the big white spruce tree in the little field below the house, something Broken Wing was doing regularly now that his reinjured wing was once again beginning to heal. The least The Man could do, he thought, was take some seeds in a little cup and put them down under the spruce tree.

  The Man dressed for the out-of-doors, went into the woodshed and scooped a few handfuls of cracked corn, millet, and other seeds out of the garbage can where he kept them, and put them in a small container. He headed down the dooryard hill toward the spruce tree.

  It was snowing hard now, and blowing, too; and the west wind blew the wet snow into The Man so hard that it hurt his face and stuck to his clothes. The wind was blowing so hard it almost knocked The Man over. When he reached the spruce tree, he got down on his hands and knees and crawled under its broad and arching branches toward the trunk. Here, at the base of the large tree with its branches bowing low under the weight of the snow, only a little of the wind and snow could enter. It would be a good place for a wild animal to ride out this storm. The Man hoped that Broken Wing was hiding safely somewhere in this tree.

  “Broken Wing!” The Man shouted over the noise of the storm, “Here are some seeds! In this little cup here. Here are some seeds! I’ll put them down here at the base of the trunk. Here’s some seeds!”

  It never occurred to The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains to think of himself as ridiculous as he crawled on his hands and knees under a white spruce tree out in the middle of a blizzard on a lonely mountainside, hollering over the noise of the storm to a wild bird. It never occurred to him to think such thoughts, because there was no one else around to have to worry about. Right now, at least, for The Man, there was only The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains and Broken Wing and a multitude of other non-human creatures, moving about vaguely, almost unseen, in the background of his life.

  Suddenly, and much to The Man’s surprise, just above him, less than an arm’s length away, there was Broken Wing. “Oh, Broken Wing! I’m so glad you’re here. Here’s some seeds. I’ll put them here on the ground at the base of the trunk.”

  The Man started to back away on all fours, then stopped. His mind raced. “Maybe the best thing for me to do is try to capture Broken Wing and take him into the house for the night, just for tonight, just one night. That way, he’d be safe. Maybe he wants me to save him. Didn’t he, after all, come down from wherever he was to see me? Didn’t he come to my call? He knows me. He knows I want to help him. Dare I reach for him?”

  The Man reached for Broken Wing and Broken Wing hopped away, just far enough so The Man could not get to him. Then Broken Wing waited, his eyes focused steadily on The Man.

  “No, I should never have reached for him. I should leave him alone. He doesn’t need me. No. He does need me. He’ll surely not survive without me. I’ve got to try to capture him. It’s for his own good.”

  The Man reached again for the wounded bird, and again Broken Wing hopped away, again just far enough to be out of reach. “Broken Wing! It’s me! Your friend. Come into the house with me, just for tonight. Please! Come in.”

  Once more, The Man reached out for Broken Wing, and once more, the bird withdrew. The Man sat down on his haunches and dropped his chin into his chest. Then, The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains raised his head and looked directly at Broken Wing.

  Farewell, my friend. Godspeed.

  I pray that you may pass this night

  safe within the branches of this tree.

  I also pray, and earnestly, that when

  morning dawns upon our world,

  we shall see each other once again.

  Take care. Be safe. My friend.

  And with that, The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains crawled backwards out from under the branches of the white
spruce tree and struggled through the ever-intensifying storm, up the hill toward his house.

  The storm raged more fiercely now. The wind howled down the road toward his house like a freight train barreling down the track. The wind blew so hard it took his breath away. He had to cup his hands around his mouth and nose to break the wind just so he could breathe. He slogged and staggered up the little hill to his house and porch, then through the door, and he was safely home.

  He took off his coat, hat, and mittens, and shook the snow from them. He took off his boots. He stood at the window then, and looked out through the blowing and drifting snow, through the last bit of the day’s light, toward where the white spruce tree now appeared for only one more brief moment as a shadow, a vague apparition, a ghostly figure tossing and bending before the force of the storm. Then it was dark, and The Man turned from the window, lit the lamps, and began preparations for his supper.

  The wind blew even harder. The house swayed on its foundation, as if it were a boat cast upon a stormy sea. It shook as if some wrathful beast had grabbed hold of the house with its huge hands. There was nothing for The Man to do but wait for the storm to pass. He remembered a poem from long ago. He went to his bookshelves and took down a book called The Complete Poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson. He opened it, and read:

  THE SNOWSTORM

  Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,

  Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields,

  Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air

  Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,

  And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end.

  The sled and traveler stopped, the courier’s feet

  Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit

  Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed

  In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

  “Well,” he said to himself, “This farmhouse certainly is ‘veiled,’ as is ‘the garden’s end,’ but there are no ‘housemates’ here.”

  Nor was there a fireplace. Rather, a large cast iron stove, up next to which The Man now stood listening to the wind howl outside, wrapped as he was in “the tumultuous privacy of storm” with a book in his hand.

  “‘Tumultuous privacy of storm,’ indeed,” he said to himself again as he put the book down, took a log out of the wood box, put it in the cast iron stove, and moved to the kitchen to begin work on his supper.

  What Emerson’s poems left out, and what The Man knew all too well, even from the privacy and security of his house, was the terror of the storm to those who must be out in it: those like Broken Wing. Emerson’s view was an observer’s and an observing view, distanced, removed, and therefore able to see the beauty in something which, at closer range, was frightening.

  There was another stanza to the poem, one that described the aftermath of the snowstorm. The Man thought it best to read that one after the storm had passed.

  For now, however, the storm continued to rage, sometimes slackening in intensity just long enough for The Man to begin to think it might be coming to an end; yet always, it seemed only long enough to gain more strength and resume again stronger than before, as if the lull had been only some kind of respite in which the elements had gathered even greater strength for yet another, more intense assault on all that clung now so perilously to the earth.

  Supper done, The Man tried to distract himself with a little reading. Reading wouldn’t do. There was nothing left but to hope and pray.

  The Man went to bed. As he lay in his bed listening to the storm’s furious wail, he wondered about Broken Wing, wondered if he’d eaten any of the seeds out of the little cup, wondered whether he was still safe within the embracing branches of the white spruce tree. The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains wondered if he’d ever see his friend again.

  The blizzard raged on into the night, at the center of which The Man and his house and the world around him, including the white spruce tree below the lane and its inhabitant, now lurched and trembled toward an uncertain dawn.

  8. INTERLUDE

  The Man pulled up the covers, turned out the bedside light, turned on his side, and fell asleep. And in his sleep, he dreamed. It was a pleasant dream that night, in spite of—or perhaps because of—the peril all about him.

  Like the white spruce tree below the road, where, hopefully, Broken Wing still hid, The Man’s little house stood strong against the storm that night, just flexible enough to bend before the punishing winds, yet rooted in its place deeply enough also to hold on.

  In the morning, when The Man awoke, the storm had passed. The day broke clear and bright and calm, as if the terrors of the night had never visited that place. Yet one look out the window gave evidence of the storm’s passing and effect. A new landscape shone bright under the morning sun. The Man went to the book of Emerson’s poems he’d left on the table last night, and now read the other stanza of “The Snow-Storm.”

  So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he

  For number or proportion. Mockingly,

  On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;

  A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;

  Fills up the farmer’s lane from wall to wall,

  Maugre the farmer’s sighs; and at the gate

  A tapering turret overtops the work.

  And when his hours are numbered, and the world

  Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,

  Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art

  To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,

  Built in an age, the mad wind’s night-work,

  The frolic architecture of the snow.

  From the safe perspective of the quiet and warm house, the results of the snowstorm did, in fact, look “frolic,” but The Man knew that for those who had to ride out that storm, as if in an open boat cast adrift upon a cold and angry sea, there was nothing “frolic” about what had happened overnight; rather, “savage” was the word.

  This had been the kind of storm that is devastating to the plants and animals and trees who must survive unprotected. Again, The Man thought to himself, “Another lesson in how appearances deceive, since what appears so whimsical and beautiful, so ‘frolic,’ is, in fact, a picture of pain and destruction as dangerous as Arnold’s fangs and claws.”

  This beauty now that he saw out the window was as deceiving as an ice storm that puts a glaze on the world so that in the morning, after the storm, when the sun rises into a clear sky and shines on the ice-encased and glittering landscape, one might forget for a moment that this picture, too, deceives. Under that beauty lies a similar destructiveness, for the weight of the ice breaks off whole limbs of trees, or bends younger trees down into permanently deformed shapes.

  Again and yet again, the world around The Man delivered lesson after lesson in how appearances—and ignorance of what lies behind those appearances—distort and deceive. Just the way, The Man thought to himself, people look at me and see what they want to see instead of who I really am.

  The Man got dressed for the out-of-doors. He had to push hard against the door, against the two feet of snow piled against it, to move the door even a little bit. When he had opened it enough to squeeze out, he worked his way to the woodshed door, opened it, and stepped into the snowless woodshed, where he found his shovel. As he went about digging out from the storm—there must have been somewhere between two and three feet of new snow—his attention and worry turned increasingly to Broken Wing.

  He dug new paths to the dooryard feeders, cleaned them off, and filled them up. With his tractor, he plowed the lane, filled in during the night from bank to bank—fills up the farmer’s lane from wall to wall—with snowdrifts four and five feet deep, down to the road. Then the Man came inside, made a cup of tea, and ate his breakfast.

  Slowly, the birds descended from the softwood thickets above the house and returned to the feeders. First the chickadees, then the nuthatches, then the downy and hairy woodpeckers, then a flock of evening grosbeaks sw
ooped in, announcing with showy aplomb that they, too, had made it through the night. All morning, The Man watched for a medium-sized rusty blackbird.

  Then, about noon, seemingly out of nowhere, there he was—walking around on the new snow beneath a feeder, eating seeds. “Broken Wing! Broken Wing! Welcome back, my friend!”

  As often is the case in the north country, the biggest storm of the winter is also the last. Quickly, now, beginning the very day after the storm, the sun seemed to rise higher and shine brighter and warmer.

  And the constant snows turned to rain, rain glaze on snow, and then mud and ice and snow. Yes. Spring, struggling to arrive.

  Light hovers now longer in the southern sky. Brooks uncover themselves. Alders redden. Evening grosbeaks’ beaks turn green. Chickadee finds the song she lost last November, and the Blue Jay Mob abandons argument and gluttony; they crane their necks, they bob their heads, they bounce on the naked branches of the apple trees and cry: Spring!

  “What?” The Man says, “What? Could I have heard a phoebe?” Yes! There also, on a naked branch of an apple tree, flicking her tail downward, calling her insistent, maddening call, over and over again. Yes. Phoebe.

  Now, The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains walks out upon the earth, walks through the warming air, under the strengthening sun, ankle-deep in mud.

  He turns his attention to his feathered summertime friends and moves across his little piece of mountainside, cleaning and repairing the many birdhouses he has scattered throughout the orchard and along the side-hill where he lives.

  And when all the birdhouses are ready for their summer inhabitants, The Man moves over to a scattered bunch of old tires, restacks them, six or eight of them, to make a tower about four feet high. He levels the tires carefully, then takes the garbage can lid that lay next to the tires, and carefully places it upside-down on top of the tires. Then he fills the garbage can lid with water and—voilà!—a birdbath and a drinking station for his summer friends.

  Wind and rain. A rush of wings. Spring. The trees loud again with birds.