Empowerment. Engagement. Authenticity.
Birds of a Feather - Eye on the Prize
We rise hundreds strong from the mangrove trees
until the pink flamingoes and blue crabs of our wetland sanctuary are
only winks through deciduous foliage. In a vee as stoplight red as our
nation’s flag, we arc southward in the amber dawn. Edged in coral white
and cerulean blue, Trinidad spreads beneath us, squares and squiggles of
farms and forests, roads and rivers, slums and skyscrapers, a dot in the
Caribbean Sea.
In the north, vehicles are tokens on an asphalt game board, gridlocking
around concrete cubes whose antennas catch the sunlight and volley it
back to us. Some rooftop restaurants spin like records on turntables.
Teak roofs and aquamarine swimming pools in varied geometric shapes mark
suburbia.
Dark green melts into rich brown as we swoop over the swamps and hills
of the Central Range, necklaced by silver thread springs and ancient
mineral caves. Occasionally, there is the blur of a howler monkey in the
paler green of sugar cane and cocoa fields.
We surge relentlessly southward to where fields look like scraps of
burlap and the tar pits sprawl. “Tell dem up dey we need rain bad!” a
buxom black woman in a threadbare duster hollers at our flock as we rise
to where the indigo of night has receded from the. ragged peaks of the
Southern Range. All too soon, the merciless sun will boing off teetering
galvenized roofs into the yawning holes of parched wells.
Here oil derricks dot the sea like black-capped sentries and the
receding swells beckon us to our feeding ground. Surging forward, a
winged tsunami in endless azure, we zoom towards Venezuela’s jungle
green. We salivate for that first glimpse of red crustacean beneath
muddy marsh after this eleven-mile pilgrimage from home to food. We’ll
do it again, day after day, at dawn and at dusk, in the time-honoured
tradition of scarlet ibises before us.
(c) Kristy Kassie, 2016
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Perspectives
Not all stories are told from eye level. The
storyteller may be on the ground, on the water or in the air. Different
perspectives can make writing more interesting. This piece is told from
the eyes of a flock of birds.
