Dawn kindles in the east. The first ray of autumn light slides through the rippled landscape, pooling between hills, oozing molten gold through valleys. It washes across the granite cliff and seeps between mossy, fallen boulders. Stubborn shadows resist but the new day is relentless. A damp, gloomy night must inevitably become a gilded morning.
Ten, twelve, eighteen nests bobble the tops of hemlocks and Douglas firs—the precise quantity is of no concern. Old nests are patched, new nests are built, abandoned nests crumble. What remains constant is the view: a patchwork of silvery-green forest, mist-ribboned, against a backdrop of slate-blue mountains. In lower nests, little humps of black feathers shiver shoulders and shake wings. Crystal dewdrops dangle from both branch and pinion tips. Those in shade, still curled against the cold, have not yet woken.
But at the tree’s pinnacle, fully exposed, I stretch wings to catch lambent warmth. Voices lift from surrounding family—affirmations, greetings, the effervescent joy of discovering we’ve lived to greet another day. Grok grok. My own throat cracks with anticipation. I lift breastbone from warm, down-lined nest. A shake of the head. A snap of beak, bright and sharp.
We sing and sing and sing.
These nests have existed for as long as anyone knows. Those who came before us—grandmothers and great-grandmothers, now fallen from the sky and reduced to pale bones—could not tell us when they started. Those who came before them—their own mothers and grandmothers, comprised of distant memories—did not know, either. What other proof do we need? These nests have been here since the beginning of the world.
This morning, visitors pass by.
First comes a bear with two cubs in tow. She ambles over fallen branches and snuffles for blackberries. This late in the season, the berries will be wormy and rotten, but she smacks her tongue and devours them, delighted. The cubs wrestle, tumble, a knot of furry limbs.
Later, two speckled fawns pluck their way across the slopes. Each delicate hoof is carefully placed amid snarls of Oregon grape. They nibble at a cauliflower mushroom. One lifts her head abruptly. The other follows. They bound away.
Our morning chorus increases as lower nests rouse. Grok grok. Trilling and clacking. From the crook of a maple, we’re joined by the staccato cheep of a chipmunk. He is furious. The bear and the deer were polite and quiet. He does not approve of our ruckus.
I let out a long, exuberant cackle.
Ka-ka-ka-ka-ka!
Footsteps approach. That familiar bipedal rhythm. Only one creature binds itself to the trail.
The chipmunk scolds this garish visitor for being clumsy and obscene: thumping heavy boots, a brilliant red outfit, an orange hat. We watch with glittering eyes as the person wanders through— not as leisurely as the bear, not as precise as the deer. They carry an armful of items: a length of wood, a toolbelt. Maybe a jelly sandwich, somewhere in that satchel.
Items are clues to motive.
Great-great-grandmothers once told us, people bestowed us with names. We were trickster, teacher, messenger, psychopomp*, creator of the world. They butchered deer and left us gifts of flesh. They called us to their battlefields to feast on their fallen. They watched our flight patterns for hints of the weather or the change in a river’s course. We took their gifts and we gave our knowledge. They were family to us, gift-givers, secret-sharers.
But something changed.
Grandmothers and mothers tell darker tales. Gifts ended. Trees fell. They chased and harried us. Death-dealers, destroyers, dangerous fools. They flattened these woodlands and burned these hills. Only on the cliff face, where their axes and chainsaws became a burden, did they bother to leave these precious hemlocks and our beloved nests, and we grieved as they reduced the land to scabs of scorched, ravaged dirt.
The items. I peer over the nest edge for a better view. What are the items?
The person hunches down, searching through the bracken, sweeping fingers over wrinkled leaves. The whole rookery flaps in distress. The helpless chipmunk has retreated, terrified. We call and cry. Mated pairs console each other with comfort sounds: Kahw-kahw-kawrrr.
The person ignores us.
Bonk, bonk, bonk. A steady rhythm, metal against wood.
The sound causes a panic in the upper branches. We recognize this pattern to mean: trees will fall. I beat my wings to make scythe-whistles in the cold air. A few ravens launch from their nests to swoop to lower branches, scolding the person, begging them to move on, please leave these trees standing. Nests are not easy to build. They take time and precision. They are passed between generations, lovingly cherished.
But then, I notice: the tool is blunt. Not an ax, but a hammer. The person raises a sturdy post topped with a sign, and pounds the post into the soil. Like a nest, it will stand for generations. Small, wormy squiggles decorate the flat plane. I can’t puzzle them into meaning. In the days following, many new people will come to admire the sign, and we will caw at them to move along, and they’ll talk back to us in soft, silky, lilting voices, and we will hear love in their words.
But for now, the person tests the strength of the post by giving it a solid kick at the base. It wobbles but holds firm. This strikes us as funny; a cacophony of overlapping caws lifts. Our croaking laughter holds more relief than humour.
The sign represents nothing to me, and yet, it’s everything. We cannot fathom that the text holds meaning, but we’ll figure its purpose as seasons turn to years and, like mothers and grandmothers, we fall from the sky. The sign proclaims this place is now part of the Cumberland Forest. These trees are protected. The nests are safe. We’ll sing to every dawn forthcoming, Grok-grok-grok, all the way to the end of the world.
*Psychopomp: an entity whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife