Birds In War
- Birds In War
With all of the bombing and explosions and smoke everywhere, the impact of all of that on birds and other wildlife can be so significant that it is hard to speculate on the extent… [I]t is like a web, like breaking glass and watching it shatter out through the whole pane.
–Mark Shieldcastle, "As War Rages on in Ukraine, Animals Are Caught in the Crossfire," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 21 March 2022
24 February 2022
I am at a writing residency in the foothills of Amherst, Virginia. I wake with morning light. Beyond my balcony, a wave of mountains emerge [End Page 106] in lavender and mauve. Two doves come in for a soft landing on a tree ten feet away.
The air is cold and brisk. I dress for breakfast, check the news. Russia is invading Ukraine, I learn, and wish to unlearn. After breakfast, I take my computer and walk the pebble path to my studio at the barn where I spend the day writing, drinking tea, napping.
26 February 2022
After lunch, I leave my studio and walk back to the residence hall where the coffee bar is open all day. I pour coffee into my insulated pink mug, stir in sugar and creamer, head back to my studio. Budded jonquils are thick, sheaths still green. I doubt they will open before I leave in two weeks. Afternoon sun hits my back. I have a novel to finish.
27 February 2022
A Ukrainian woman and her parrot flee to Poland.
29 February 2022
A rainy day and chill. Late afternoon, bunched clouds break open at the horizon, sending light into my studio. I do yoga. On the way back to the residence hall for dinner, I pass a net of bushes. A blue jay squawks. Overhead a hawk circles.
After dinner, I check the news. A forty-mile Russian convoy has entered Ukraine, headed toward Kyiv.
1 March 2022
I walk among the boxwoods at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, inhaling their resinous scent. Bluebirds fly overhead, zips of blue. They nest. I see them every time I visit this place. Bluebirds and mockingbirds, those scissor flyers, bombardiers. [End Page 107]
Only later do I learn that ten Ukrainian civilians are killed and thirty-five wounded during a Russian bombardment of Kharkiv.
8 March 2022
I am home. Four cardinals roost in the crepe myrtle beyond my writing window. I'm on my second cup of coffee. My novel is with my agent and I'm unmoored. There's nothing I can do but start another one. Oh, there are other things I can do. Taxes, for example, clean out the attic, cart items to Goodwill, scrub the bathroom tile. What the people of Ukraine wouldn't give for an ordinary day.
9 March 2022
Wettish day but not gloomy. One cardinal in the crepe myrtle this morning. A black cat crosses the road. I wish it were a fox but it isn't. Reports that Russia will attack Odessa. Elderly people can't evacuate. Or perhaps they won't. Seven bears are transported by truck from the Kyiv zoo about four hundred miles to the west, traversing dangerous territory and passing through multiple checkpoints.
11 March 2022
A morning of writing, a walk with the dog. We run up on five chickens in a neighbor's yard. The dog spots them first. They peck in the grass, unperturbed. The chickens are large, brown and gray, full of their chickenness, their small heads turning to look, then back to pecking. I laugh at their oddity in our old suburb.
Ukrainians, still in their homes, shelter animals, chinchillas, cats, dogs, parrots.
My rhythm is still off since returning from VCCA. I want to sit with my coffee and look at the mountains. I don't want to shop for groceries or fix dinner. I keep going out to buy lunch, dinner, coffee and scones. [End Page 108]
12 March 2022
Last night I filled the birdfeeder. Just before dawn, rain arrived, hard and whipping. Now four male cardinals flit and light in the crepe myrtle. I finish my first cup...
