Early July and I am stunned by the emptiness of the air. The cuckoos have gone quiet, have gone. Why didn’t I realise sooner? Too busy locked inside hiding from heatwaves and vengeful evening storms. I suddenly miss his confident bell ringing, his reminder that nature persists despite our best efforts.
He started in early May, an unmistakable nursery rhyme song, complete and faithful. I live in a small village atop a wooded hill outside Lugano in Switzerland. Enough of the woods nestle the apartment blocks and villas to give the cuckoo a choice of stages for his repetitive posturing. When he first sang, I was a boy again, living on the edge of Epsom Common woods where cuckoos were a distant, tree-suffocated sound; a promise of something fleeting and stranger amongst all the wary resident songbirds. Here in Montagnola this African migrant proudly calls a partner in the famous crime: laying eggs in smaller songbird nests, kicking out the existing eggs, fleeing from the scene before the first mother returns to cock a confused head at an outsized egg. An egg that reflects back our own nature for aren’t we being cuckoos to the Earth? They are secretive birds; tricksters afraid to be uncloaked, the confidence scam revealed. I caught a glimpse in late May as he bolted past: part pigeon, part sharp-bodied hawk with a surprisingly large spotted body and short, hurried wings. He fled to the depth of a tree. Throughout May and June, a cuckoo was always nearby whether we were at home, high up in the Alps, on the edge of Italian lakes. Always the same herald of summer from a select number of prominent trees, the song deliberately changing in pitch as the weeks wore on. He was the loudest sound of the evenings, perhaps to keep the lazy evening at bay as Midsummer exposed the moon. Now I sit saddened by the vacuum of noiselessness. He has left with his mate, and their egg will have gifted grieving parents an oversized adoptee. I realise the true message of his song: the fleeting nature of all gifts in life; be aware before it is gone.
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AuthorA poetic-essay style blog with a limit of 365 words. 365 like the days of the year - my name being one of those days! Archives
March 2020
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