Pajarito
(Little Bird)
Two-yards from my glass door there is a garden of high and dense foliage, and the dirt is rich and dark, and there is a birdbath in the house garden, and overhead a blue and tranquil sky—nearly everyday in the summer. Some of the plants grown two stores high, and we have two birdhouses in the garden, and food available, and a variety of small birds fly to and fro—that is, in and out, and lounge about in this free and natural zone, within Lima, Peru, a city of eighty-million people, and five million cars, and smog galore, and a polluted river that runs through the city.
Ten years ago when I first moved into this house, I was so angry that the garden was nothing but dirt with dog dung all over the place, knee-deep in the brown earth, and I swore to the high heavens this would not do.
“Why in the hell, in this smog infested city does the dirt within your own premises have to be knee-deep in manure?” I mumbled. But before either my wife or those living in the house, my wife’s in-laws, clutched the wall next to them, as these words hurled past them, and then I let it go at that. And the dog that lived in the house, and compost in the garden as if it was a toilet, died—after seventeen long years of dung fertilizer was left in the garden. There were times when I was so provoked to rid myself of my wife’s dog, but it dropped dead from exhaustion, thus no need to do anymore wishing. Then I told my wife, new and lovely wife, “It’s time we were starting a garden,” so I told her, “I’m tired of looking at this matter, how much deeper will it get if we get another dog?” And another dog was out of the question for me.
Thus, I sat out by the garden and fanned myself, lest I get infected by the putrid debris—its smell its floating illnesses.
“The trouble with you and your family is that you ain’t found the patience that I’ve got to plant a garden, and watch it grow!” As a result, I’ve been digging and planting, and watering and hoeing in this garden close to ten-years now, and I’m aiming to dig another ten, if indeed I am still living here. I figured I would make the garden livable for birds, I felt it in my bones those long hot summer days in Lima. It made sense to me to start from scratch, and in those ten-years I must have put a ton or two of new dirt in that little garden. I just kept plugging away like nothing ever was going to happen, then in the summer of 2010, it did happen, I told my wife, “Impatient, hell!” spitting into the dark rich dirt, “we no longer need patience—what we need are birds now,” and they came one by one, and by the time the summer was nearly over, there were fifteen to twenty birds that came into the garden on a regular bases, daily—the year prior to this they had also come, but not as plentiful.
We’ll this is part one to the story, now for part two, the little bird, in Spanish, it is called Pajarito, and that will have to do for the little bird’s name.
Pajarito, was born in my garden, looking over the top and through the leafage I discovered one day, Mother Pajarito, had built a nest and there were two small eggs from this brown house sparrow. I’ve always been a religious man, all my life I have, and I’ve always done the best I could, no matter how much I was unaware of God’s little creatures, but for some reason, this garden, this nest and these two eggs seemed to be a church, I was proud to divide with God. And I watched the mother overnight with my flashlight sitting on those two small eggs. As the little birds inside were growing in them. I just couldn’t take my eyes off those eggs.
“Where’d you say those eggs were, Dennis?” asked Rosa my wife.
“Over there near the twisting staircase!” I said.
“You’ve taken a liking for them, Dennis?” she asked.
“I sure to God have,” I said. “And that’s a fact.”
And so for a few weeks we watched the eggs, and one day, I was tickled to find the baby was born, but one egg did not crack, it would remain forevermore, unfrocked, in that nest.
There was no back tail for the little sparrow (not yet anyhow), now named, Pajarito, and he was a mischievous little sparrow to say the least, he tried to chase the other entire lot of sparrows out of his space, and out of their space, as if the whole garden was his domain (if indeed he was a he). I think I got a lion for a boarder, I told my wife. Never mind, he was cute, and I continued to leave food out as I do usually everyday, and that little bird’s stomach fell to the lower part of its feet, almost dragging its belly. It was hard for him to fly, and the other birds got their share of food likewise, but I think Pajarito got double their portion. But I didn’t pay no heed to it, told my wife, “Don’t give it no attention. Pajarito don’t mean no harm, just likes to eat like most Peruvians do, no limits.”
It’s a pity God can’t make people more like sparrows I told myself, Pajarito got the most friendly little walk, and started coming through those glass doors into my office, and under my table, on the rug and then would leave the same way he came in—unaware giants can do harm. He just kept on and on—and now looking at him, I told my wife one day—Pajarito had come in the house and was flying around, I was in the bathroom, and when I came out he tried to make his escape, but went too far to the right, and hit the glass door which is the length of the whole living room, and I think he felt someone was teasing him, because he kept trying to go head first into that glass, as if it was going to give way to his mighty force.
“Well,” I told myself, once seeing him helplessly trying to escape, before I got to him, “it might be God’s fault that he didn’t know when to stop and look about for the entrance, the same one he came through…” but just the same when I got to Pajarito, I pushed him gentle with my hand, to his behind, where his tail-wing was just starting to grow out, and out he went into the opened glass door, and into the garden, after leaving a little pile of—you got it—muck, behind, evidently he was scared of the giant that tried to help him.
Over in the garden today beside the house, Pajarito was under a big leaf, and there was a big bug on top of the leaf, he must have seen his shadow, and Pajarito jumped an inch or so up, his wings a half turn over, his head hitting the leaf, exactly were the bug was—a good shot, and the bump, broke the balance of the bug, and the bug flew away—had to fly away he was bumped off the leaf for the most part—I reckon Pajarito didn’t take a liking for the bug, and I sat against the back of my chair in wonderment, I was comfortable there, and it was shady, and I wondered what was next in Pajarito’s life?
No: 608 (3-25-2010)
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