Perches

Yesterday the kingfisher, kotare, was calling from the very top of the gingko tree. Facing toward the creek where they nest, it called over and over.

It called as I walked down the back to the open space I like to stand in, the place of sunrises and spectacular clouds, the place I go when I want to search out the hawk. The kingfisher called as I stood there in the sun, and it called as I walked back again.

As I came closer to its tree, I saw it look down. Seen against its white body, the dark sword beak seemed to point at me, steady and still. I took a step closer and it flew away.

I haven’t seen the kingfisher sit here and call this way before. That doesn’t mean it hasn’t. I miss 99.9 percent of the life that goes on out here. But I’m used to seeing it sit elsewhere; the sweeping bough of the eucalyptus tree, the foremost beam of the pergola, the long arm of the cherry tree. Low down spots. The places it hunts from. Sweeping from a low perch, it picks a creature up from the grass, lands in a tree on the other side of the lawn where it beats its prey against the branch, tips back its head and swallows it whole. The kingfisher has different spots for different needs.

It calls from on high for a mate, of course. This morning as I sat in the sun, warming myself like I’ve seen so many birds do, it was at it again—calling from the treetops. The next moment, there are two of them dashing and diving with an aliveness and kind of gladness that I don’t see during hunting.

I’m writing about the kingfisher, but also this little lit space in the corner of my bedroom where I often write. It’s a perch of a kind, and it made more sense after watching the kingfisher.

The kingfisher chooses a perch from which to call and be heard. I choose this perch when I need quiet in order to listen—either to what is in my own head or to the words swimming around me. The kingfisher seems to seek out the quiet too. Very rarely do I hear it call during the dawn chorus. It waits until the cacophony has died down, singing into the silence instead, the better to be heard.

I have other perches; places outside that I write from—the tree trunk by the back gate, the grass under the macrocarpa tree, the seat that looks out at the lawn— though only when the weather is warm enough to be out for a while, and dry enough for rough sitting. Inside I’ll write from the kitchen bench or the dining table, or from the couch, on my knee, in the sun.

Different spots offer me different things, as they do for the kingfisher. Inspiration, conviviality, atmosphere, concentration, quiet. Where we are can affects the part of ourselves we can know.

The kingfisher is calling again now, from the gingko tree, alone. It calls to connect, and to fulfil on what instinct is inviting it to. We do that too, don’t we? We reach out, write out, speak out to connect with others.

And we also have ways or places from which we can connect with consciousness, that invisible web on which we all dance. I write in the quiet, from this little desk, to connect myself to that. I write from this space to remind myself, and anyone else who wants to remember, that not only do we live in connection with everything else, but that we co-create the web itself.