Adapted from an image by ichip
Birdy Reformation
These things have a way of working themselves out. Besides, who am I to say who should or shouldn’t sing about canaries? Seems to me that the crows have as much right to it as anyone else. Well—it’s more cawing than singing, but even so, crows don’t get the respect they deserve. Unless they get all lah-di-da-ed up and call themselves ravens. But why the canaries should get their tweety little selves all bent out of shape over crows singing about them—well that’s a mystery to me. And I wouldn’t give it a second thought if not for that Old Crow singing in my bathtub.
Have you ever tried to talk with a canary? They’re not great conversationalists like, say, parakeets or mynahs. Or crows. The best thing about canaries is their yellow quality. There isn’t much else to them when you come right down to it. Take away the feathers and the beak, and what’s left? A vain little chicken-mcnuggety thing. Old MacDonald had a farm. And a few spidery bones. Them bones, them bones, them dry bones.
Ever since the day that list appeared tacked on the door—the one saying which birds are allowed to sing about which other birds—that’s when my bathtub became some sort of retreat for the Old Crow. I mean, I never even knew that birds were singing about other birds. I thought it was all about food and sex and maybe the weather once in a while. How could I know it was almost all bird gossip?
The list was supposed to be anonymous, but it didn’t fool me. Who else would put the canary at the top of the list but the canary? So easy to see that the little yellow twitter was behind it all. No work at all. And I’ve been working on the railroad. Underground. So the list says no one can sing about a canary except another canary. But hey—they can sing about anyone they want. And the crows? Right at the bottom. Everyone can sing about them and they can only sing about each other. It isn’t right, not to mention it’s got to get tedious for the crows.
The day it all happened, the Old Crow thought he had it all figured out. Put on his little black Homburg, picked up his silver walking stick, and two-foot-hopped it out of here muttering something about Jim Crow. Singing Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care. And I thought crows liked cracked corn. He left here looking like the cat that swallowed the canary. But when he widdle-waddled back, his head was down and he was—I don’t know—smaller somehow. Diminished. Why, his feathers even looked kind of dowdy. Shoo fly pie and apple pan dowdy. I don’t know what he learned, but he let me know it was hopeless. Something about “the pecking order” and no changing it.
So the Old Crow launched his own little private one-crow protest. In my bathtub. He wanted the kitchen at first, but someone was in the kitchen. With Dinah. He used to live in the kitchen, made a big old nest on the back burner—home on the range I guess you’d call it. Now he’s packed up and moved into the tub. Said he was in good company. Something about Harriet Tubman. That was last Saturday night. Splish splash.
Each night, he sings about a different bird, just daring those other birds to stop him. Yesterday it was the vireo. Wednesday the tufted titmouse. So I wasn’t surprised today to hear the crow sing about the canary. It sounded right and proper really, about time. And he’s been at it for hours now. Just keeps on singing. Black bird singing in the dead of night.
Copyright © 2009 by Lydia Fazio Theys
