Birds Of Passage
In the midst of
the ocean of becoming
we adventurers and birds of passage
wake up on an island no larger than a small boat,
and here
we look round us for a moment
with as much haste and curiosity as possible;
for how quickly
may some gale blow us away
or some wave sweep over the little island
and leave nothing of us remaining!
Here, however,
upon this little piece of ground
we meet with other birds of passage
and hear of still earlier ones,
—and thus we live together
for one precious minute
of recognition and divining,
amid the cheerful fluttering of wings and joyful chirping,
and then adventure in spirit
far out on the ocean,
feeling no less proud than the ocean itself.
The Dawn Of Day by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by J. M. Kennedy, aphorism 314
This superb bit of prose is similar to a film short, a gem-like, single point summation of life. “We Birds of Passage” is a metaphor, an angle of view of human beings. Nietzsche compares us to sea voyaging birds. I have seen a number of species of these birds, and admire their adaptation to the severe conditions of sea and shore. The birds are social, manifestly aware of their kind, congregating together on the sand.
Is this Starbucks simply another tiny island, no larger than a small boat? The moments here are precious, something I ought not to take for granted, practicing all the more diligence in “looking around with curiosity.”
A bird of passage… Without question it’s marvelous that you and I are aware, taking note of the temporal nature, vapor-like of every thing. But what about us? It is more difficult to grasp that I am no exception to the passage of all things.
Nevertheless, why not adventure in my spirit to the far horizon…
feeling no less proud than the ocean itself.
3 thoughts on “Birds Of Passage”
Certainly you are far more familiar with Mr. Nietzsche’s work than I am, but today’s quote seems to be less dark than his usual thoughts on life.
As I do on occasion, I’m adding a brief verse from my photographic and written exploration of a hotel room in Fresno a number of years back. The intent here is to note a community of lost souls, all of whom have occupied a specific hotel room (aka island) at some point in time:
I have melted into this room,
become a part of the décor,
the drapes and the bedspread.
I will stay here, watching
as the unknown reveal themselves,
in sorrow and joy and indifference.
Home at last.
The lines of your poem are suffused with melancholy. Our sense of the inevitable, that we and everything else is and are time bound, is key to becoming worthy custodians of the earth, our home and habitat. These lines beginning the second stanza of T. S. Eliot’s poem East Coker convey a similar insight:
In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots
And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.
In my beginning is my end.
Time is so goddamned relevant to any sense of beginning and ending. T.S. Eliot’s words are prescient with regard to ALL THINGS including the end of time and even as the Big Bang burst forth. Indeed, In the Beginning is the End.