In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

91 Jay (Devil-may-care!) Dedicated to my son Jay It doesn’t take long to learn to speak like a human. My tongue is used to warbles and screeches, caws and alarming imitations of hawks. So, the human language (English, to be precise) is only a minor variant of cacophony. Words can transform , cover, and reveal. Of course, my transformation left me naked as (excuse the sly humor) a jaybird. My feathers lay in a shimmering pile at my toes, which looked like grubs. I had to stop myself from bending over and eating them. I wiggled the toes, experimentally , and the sheen of feathers winked in the shaft of a forest sunbeam. I stepped forward, crushing a feather. The blue (O the sky!) bled out into the air. Blue is transient. The day sky is full of darkness, only we don’t see it. Oh, I’m not much of a philosopher. I’ll leave that to the Great Ravens who meditate perched high on craggy trees. Even hummingbirds think more about life than I do. They are, after all, ancient warriors and the beloved of Left-Handed Hummingbird, the Aztec war god. They know life is about moving faster than the other guy. No, I’m just a simple Jay. Or not so simple. After all, I’ve been hexed by a beleaguered Horned Owl. I was hazing her, swooping and calling her names (Flat-Face, Swivel Head, Gristle Up-Chucker). At first she cowered, being just a notch above a fledgling, but she was a strong one, more hooked into her mojo than I thought. Owls are wiser than mice, which isn’t saying much. They do look smart with a ring of spectacle-like dark feathers around their big eyes. And they enjoy the dark hunt (the skitter of little paws in the leafy forest floor sends the blood pumping in their soulless hearts), but. But! They have no sense of humor. We Corvidae like a good joke. (Not directed toward us, of course.) We enjoy sitting on the scarecrow in the cornfield, waiting for the farmer to heave the 92 hoe onto his shoulder and trudge back into his cornered nest. Maize is the food of this ancient land and part of our oral tradition. Welove(absolutely!)wakinghumansupatdawnwithourOdestoMorning Defecating. Ravens sing about the Time of Famine and plucking out the eyeballs of dying soldiers. Magpies sing about strings of glittery threads and piles of buttons and bones. Jays sing about ourselves, our great shining beauty. Each jay may look similar to the human eye, which cannot see our personal auras. Mine is a midnight blue with sparks of fire and little twinkles of devil-may-care limegreen . It’s natural for me to heckle owls and hawks, and I’m quite good at it. This time, however, I was flummoxed to discover the Horned One was a regular Hecate. She sent the spell far-darting into my aura, my cloak of feathers , and deeper into my bones. She hexed and charmed, hawking up mangled bones with mouse ears (which she stirred with her claws into arcane symbols), clicked tonal variations of owl-mutter, and snapped her beak, cracking words into broken feathers. I shivered under her naked eyes (the whole dark moody moon look) and felt myself change, bones elongating, skull enlarging like a wasp nest, fingers growing where wing tips once fluttered. She smirked and flew off into the cedars. I stood there, naked for several heartbeats, assessing my new body, flexing my muscles. I cocked my head and blinked. Two eyes, centered, was odd and a bit disorienting, but I soon got the hang of it. My next step was to steal (snatch, borrow, scrounge) clothing. I wandered out of the forest, which was a finger of green stretching from the sea into the city. There was a street with rows of houses; it was curiously empty of people for the middle of the day. I saw shoes hanging up, laced together, over a long wire that stretched from one dead tree to another. I scratched my head. How could I get the shoes down without flying? I gave up, irritated at my new limitations. I hopped, and then modulated to a walk, into a backyard, where I found a blue jacket hanging on the back of a chair. I took it. It was a little big but OK. I loved the color. Even then, I knew I needed more clothes. I...

Share