fekete hollo
The birds of Csillaghegy are busy at night. The little ones who populate the small, twisted fruit trees in the blocks chirp feverishly, up and down the phalanx of flats, right after the sun has set and the darkness is brand new. I can see their little bodies rise and drop from branch to branch, chatting madly as they move.
The songsters outside my bedroom window, whose songs seep delicately into my dreams, keep me wide awake for ar least an hour just after the middle of the cold, dark night. Could have been the slight fever I'm nursing....no, this has happened before, when I was relatively healthy.
There is something subtlely alarming about bird song at night. Such a seemingly humble occurence feels like an omen of some sort. It is not supposed to happen, it's an anomaly....only bats make noise at night. Birds who sing at night are preparing for the apolcalypse.
Or they are pining for home and freedom. The other night I was taking a walk when I heard, very nearby, the sharp cry of a hawk. It took me off guard, naturally, until I realized that these were the hawks that live up the street from our house, in a cage.
Two hawks live in a cage low to the ground and cry out many nights, each cell bursting with the memory of the way it should be. They should be surfing thermal currents, manipulating gravity, nesting in tall pines. They should be hunting for their food instead of having it tossed in their general direction. It is very possible that this low-life is the only one they have known but those cells, those cells...they know and are pregnant with the possibilites despite the hawks lack of such luxury. So the birds and their cells instinctively cry out, yearning, however subconsciously, for deliverance. Hawk song at night is not so alarming as it is tragic.
"Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're trying to be so quiet..."
