BIRD ATTRACTOR

Bird Attractor

Written in Buenos Aires, inspired by a capsuled origami my fellow countrywoman Elva Villegas made in Mexico, days before the beginning of the First Origami Convention in the city of Rosario, Argentina.

Carmelo Urso

https://carmelourso.wordpress.com/

twitter: @carmelourso

That scarecrow had spent years without scaring anyone in its rye field.

Always quiet, only the sullen winter breeze managed to get a slight movement out of his arms made of old scraps of fabric and straw.

One day, two rooks courting each other in the air landed on the scarecrow’s comfortable cup hat.

“Is someone there?” – The birds asked.

Nobody answered.

“May we stay and nest on your hat?” –they asked again.

Nobody answered.

“Silence is consent” –Said the rooks and settled.

They mated in the spring; they fattened in the summer with the field’s rye; in the autumn they would perch on the roofs of nearby houses, announcing sinister omens; in the winter, they would fly low before migrating to far away fields… only to nest again on the scarecrow’s hat when the spring came.

Never did the rag doll ask for anything in return. He never reproached the birds’ temperamental humor, the air battles, their incorrigible lack of hygiene. He never complained about the rooks’ screeching uproar, or the rooks’ children, or the children’s children.

His head, empty of thoughts –as empty as the cup of his old hat- was infinitely receptive to the love and feast of the rooks, who –spring after spring- kept on nesting on its head.

Again and again the rooks –jokingly- asked:

“Hey, buddy, is someone there?”

And the rag doll, made a bird attractor, said nothing, reproached nothing, infinitely empty, infinitely generous to the rooks the spring gave him.

Email: entiempopresente4@gmail.com