Paul Elliman:
Mardi’s life is said to be characterized by repetition but it still involves patterns of change, since repetition also follows a range of tempos. Take the birds, for example. Every morning the same birds occupy the same places and sing the same songs. The male Indigo Bunting, a small bright blue finch-like bird that could fit comfortably inside the gently closed palm of a small hand, will sit on the cyclone fence of the abandoned zoo for a few minutes, riffing through its distinct tweet-sweet chew-chew tweet-sweet song. Then it zips off to the tall pine in the empty lion’s pen and renders the song again. And again from a branch in the dense thicket of trees to the side of the pine. Tweet-sweet chew-chew tweet-sweet. It could follow this routine for hours each day. The same is true of the Goldfinches and the Orioles, even if these spend shorter moments at their favorite places. And the tiny Warbling Vireo, who seems to have more places and zips around faster between them, and though smaller sings even louder than the other birds. Then all of a sudden the birds are gone; as if they had received a call from some other place and left for there. But months later, at another point in the slow spectral change of the seasons, they are all back again. Back at the same posts and fluting away with their same songs. The Indigo Bunting must constantly think of that perfect spot to nest and raise another small family, thought Mardi, around the same time every year at about the same place on a walk through the dark woods of the beautiful island.
