Bede or some such saint said that all this earthly life amounts to is a bird flying in and out the windows of a hall. That's an arresting thought, this morning on the ground in this non-place where the highest good is to be on time and no one asks what time itself is good for. Today, Bede might have preferred to use the metaphor of changing planes; we hurry around while being transferred from one gate to another, then sit – a pinball waiting to be batted out of our stasis and onto the scheduled crest of a tide. On the other hand, the system works, most of the time. This morning is one of those frozen-in spaces, owing to a mechanical delay. A ten-year-old boy across from me is immersed in a handheld game. I wonder if he knows the difference between his toy reality and the flight for which we both wait. Do I? Idling at the gate, the book I am reading involves medieval wonder tales of talking birds. They were easy to believe, nine hundred years ago. An eagle would climb onto a sinning king's dinner table and give him a fierce but pious scolding. Or a white dove would give comfort at an empty cradle. Once, talking crows were common, miracles that caught no one off guard, just ordinary stories that got told in grocery stores and pubs. I close my book and as I do, a small, feathered blur, a house sparrow, flies overhead, streaking straight down the mezzanine. Were I more optimistic, I'd think the bird could find a way out of its airport stir, but I have my doubts. Morning sunlight pours through vast windows, but the bird, like the rest of us is caught on the inside of the glass – no weather, no breeze. I imagine a serf in the age of Alfred, and how he might look up from the surrounding mud to see a passing lark, and be reminded by its song and its disappearance into the distance that, yes, escape was still possible somewhere in the world. On Concourse C, I am far from certain there is any place the sparrow could go; but it leaves a whisper in its wake.
James Silas Rogers is the author of two poetry collections, Sundogs (2006) and The Collector of Shadows (2019), as well as an essay collection about cemeteries, Northern Orchards: Places Near the Dead. (2014). Five of his pieces have been selected as “notables” in the annual Best American Essays volumes. He has also published widely on Irish writing
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