Where Did the Bird Get the Idea to Make a Nest?
A Lyric Meditation
From the window if my den, I watch a robin hop on the lawn, picking up the fallen straw—or rather, the weed-whacked stalks of grass that the sun has baked to a pale yellow brown.
He lifts his head. His mouthful of straw makes a comical mustache. He hops from the lawn onto the patio, then takes flight and vanishes into the scrub oak. He returns a second time, then a third, repeating the same process of gathering the dried weed stalks.
I’m watching this and a thought pops into my head.
Did the first idea of weaving a basket out of rushes or needles, or reeds come from watching a bird make its nest? A nest certainly resembles a basket, especially with its clutch of eggs nestled in the middle. But then the question arises, if the idea of basket weaving came from watching a bird makes its nest, where did the bird get the idea?
To build a nest a bird must lay down a strand of pliable material and get it to stay in place.
It intrigues me that our word for building a structure—fabrication—also is our word for the making of fiction. There is a sleight of hand at work in turning strand into twine and fiber into fabric.
We spin a tale. We can tell a good yarn. There is a playful crossover between the text we type and the textiles we weave.
This robin gathers base materials out of the yard with which to make a home for her young. A poet gathers up memories to weave a textured history that becomes a self.
