Day 13: The Age of Silence

• Manja Maksimovič

Today I celebrate birds, which have been singing so happily around me lately that I just have to whistle back. And sometimes I call out “upupa” to the hoopoe since this is how it is called in Italian (and Latin) after its call.

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Prompt 13: “Write a poem in the form of a news article you wish would come out tomorrow.“

The Age of Silence

Today’s news from Slovenia:

Disintegration of Yugoslavia 
is not finished. (Really?)
Peasants have had it. 
(Revolt again?)
“I killed them because
they got on my d...k.” 
(Says triple murderer.)
At the wedding bridegroom’s mother discovers 
that the bride is her long-lost daughter.
(I had to read it twice.)

Perhaps I should be
like My Big TOE guy 
in the book I’m reading
(it’s his Theory of Everything
and he calls it non-fiction), 
and alter my level of perception 
so that time ceases to exist
and I’m able to read the news in advance
and get rich by betting on winning horses
as in that old movie It Happened Tomorrow. 

But what I really wish to know
is not what happens tomorrow:

The news I wish for
is how decades from now,
after the incoming
long and impenetrable
Age of Silence
the early morning calm
is broken
by 
a 
little
tweet.

In photos: all the birds from around here that my camera could catch this year plus one lost bro at the end. The first four are oldest, taken in January and early February by the Orbetello lagoon, to where I must not return due to different municipality.

The Eurasian hoopoe (Upupa epops) is in the three photos towards the end. It was first spotted in February and after that I keep seeing and hearing them daily and there are many. It is a spectacle in flight but for that I’d need to take a video. That one photo I managed – and it was not easy since it’s mighty fast on take-off – shows nothing of its magnificent feathers.

Other names I’ll be merely guessing. Just call them Fabrizio, Sara, Francesco, Elena or Mario.

  • Who are you yelling at?
  • Flamingos are too far to hear you.
  • Here they look calm but the one on the left (she?) was shrieking so much that bestia and I turned around and let them be.
  • This one did not care one way or another. (Black beak means egret?)
  • And yellow beak means stork? (Just guessing here.)
  • Orange beak means goose. Yes, you are birds too.
  • This shot was taken from our garden. Amore spotted it far away on top of a pole. I zoomed in heavily and didn’t notice that it was facing away from us in all photos. That’s some bestia!
  • Socially distancing.
  • Far away, so close.
  • Even closer. Why electricity doesn’t kill birds?
  • Pigeons prefer hard surfaces in the setting sun.
  • This is the top of a tall tree, and when they leave you’ll know it.
  • Is this a Great tit?
  • This is some fancy kind of dove with the neck noose.
  • I only spotted this one because it was loud.
  • Looks like a sparrow to me…
  • Here it is, the Upupa! European Hoopoe.
  • It was posing so nicely. Thank you!
  • The only time I managed to catch it fly away.
  • Wow bro, wrong folder.

For:

NaPoWriMo 2021 Button with black background

This day in my NaPoWriMo history (2019):

Little witch

There is no shadow without darkness,
there is no shadow without light.

She lives on the border between the two.
Where the shadows are.

There is power,
fear,
ease
on the edge.

She moves along it,
making baby steps
in one direction
and then the other.

Darkness pulls,
light wins.

White is natural,
black is omnipotent
and therefore scary.

The first time she is tripping
is also the last time.
She feels so powerful
that she doesn’t know how to walk
without flying off
into the falling snow.

She has men sitting  
on the floor before her
telling her secrets,
asking her opinion,
crying.

She steps back into the shadow
towards the white light
and writes from there.

Her pen is at the ready
and so is her pan
in case a monster enters her shadowlands
in need of a good thrashing.
   
Some say:
“Go into the dark.
Write out of anger.
Explore the negative.”

She says:
“You have no idea  
what you’re asking for.”

23 thoughts on “Day 13: The Age of Silence”

    1. Thank you kindly, Mark, and for the follow too. Are you a fan of Kusturica? I’ve seen this one only once. Arizona Dream is my favourite. And his early ones are just epic: Do You Remember Dolly Bell?, When Father Was Away on Business, Dom za vešanje (with the bad English title Time of the Gypsies). I just saw that there was a 2016 one with Monica Bellucci! Thanks for this memory burst. Those were the times…

      Liked by 1 person

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  5. Great bird photos Manja. The white birds are all egrets. The different colours are different ones. Yellow are Intermediate Egrets. Love the disinterested Raptor of some sort on the pole. Your Hoopoes are lovely 🙂 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

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  10. Pingback: Day 13: Stream of a con – An Embarrassment of Riches

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