dream

Crouching on a balcony with my father who is observing something in the distance through binoculars. I can't see that far, and am looking up in the branches of the tree right above. A bird: sky-blue, the color children paint the sky, with white and navy-blue spots on its belly; then another: with a smooth, yellow crest on top of its head; and another: with a fine, hooked beak; and then a larger one: like a hawk. The hawk eats a finch. It happens so quickly, I doubt I'd even seen the finch. Then a spotted woodpecker. I know them all by name. And then I notice a large green parrot*. I recognize him immediately as the protagonist. All other birds have taken off. Now the parrot is on the ground, as if center stage. Parched, sun-colored ground. The parrot strolls around proudly. He has large eyes, encircled by small dark petals that make them look like stars. Another bird appears. At first, I thought it was a woodpecker; it is so much smaller. But it is a female parrot. The two start a courtship dance.

A Russian dancer, dressed in bright red robes, embroidered with white, yellow, and black thread, joins the dance. The robes resemble a Japanese kimono. The sleeves are wide and square, and so stiff -- and yet the sheen betrays the softness of a fine fabric -- that the dancer can move his arms like wings. He tries to lure the male parrot. His body is parallel to the ground; his arms move barely a few inches above it. The position is impossible. Incredible concentration. The female parrot withdraws. The male parrot starts to imitate the movements of the Russian dancer. In the final figure, they both incline their heads to the ground, with their wings and arms outstretched. Sublime silence.

They do not rise for applause, nor to greet each other, nor to continue the dance. They just lie there. Now hunters come, and with long spears pick at the flesh of the bird and the dancer. I am grief-stricken: they can't be dead. I see a hunter pick a choice morsel of the flesh, as if he'd just deveined a shrimp. I shout to chase them away, to make them stop, to awaken the dancers and bring them back to life.

There is a war that goes on in the distance, and now I notice distant smoke released by freshly fired shotguns. We have been looking at a battlefield all along.



* The only part of 'daily' residue: there are small green parrots in Hampstead Heath. I photographed one a few weeks ago, and I think of them often.