Three score blackbirds alight a winter tree,
soundless on the leafless limbs in quiet company.
In lines of silent, sable flames, they ignite to spy
me with curiosity and six score eyes.
(c) Eric Robert Nolan 2026
Photo credit: Donald F. Mott, 2021
Avian altercation! A chirpity-chirpity ruckus erupted at my fifth floor windowsill this morning … two sparrows were biting and plucking at a third. The aggressors had darker head coloring; the victim’s was lighter — I’m guessing this means it was either a female or a juvenile?
I tapped the glass pretty hard, and the bad birds took off. Then this beleaguered bird-twerp hung out for a minute and actually looked at me as if in acknowledgment. (Yeah, the picture quality is cruddy, but you can see the little fluff-nugget looking at me.)
I started searching my memory for a bird-themed superhero I could then proclaim myself to be … but both Marvel’s “Falcon” and Michael Keaton’s “Birdman” (2014) seemed fairly lame. My girlfriend, who is ever more cultured than I am, invoked Walt Whitman instead:
“I sound my barbaric ‘YAWP’ over the roofs of the world!!!”
“There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.”
― William Shakespeare , Julius Caesar
“Apocalypse Now” (1979) was an institution in the house where I grew up. I think most fans will agree that Robert Duvall’s line here was the most iconic.
I am linking to The Dollar Theater on Youtube for the clip below.