Bird with sprig in its beak. That would be my chicken, the one who has escaped and covered every inch of scratched earth with a sprout of thyme or something invasive—lemon balm, scotch broom…at least that’s how I imagine these weeds have appeared everywhere since the chickens have free ranged.
From their point of view, the house is a distant lighthouse—a light appears in one eastern window, another in the south. Inside, figures move about, their lower halves invisible. Or perhaps they have no lower halves. These figures begin at the level of the window sill. They are less than a meter tall. They float from space to space, room to room. Above, steam rises from the rooftop. In the winter, pungent smoke from fir and eucalyptus branches rises from a chimney pipe and hovers over the yard. The sky has expanded.
In the morning, the door opens outward. There are the containers—one food, one water. It is not what we prefer, the beige crumbles tasteless and dry. But we are so hungry, having spent all night inside this tiny enclosure that you call a “house.” At first we try to entertain ourselves, imagining what you are doing. Is that a gray cat she is picking up? Is that the glare of the television? Are they sitting there again together in the room behind the big walnut tree? But we grow tired and blinky, close our eyes, sleep, waiting for you to grow legs as you move into the light.
I am not an island. I am a bird with a sprig in its beak. I am eating the sprig.
If an island is a counterweight to a star’s grim roots, then water is the infinite space of a false analogy. Water is not infinite, as we come to realize when it becomes finite. I have a sump pump attached to the outside of my bathroom wall. After I take a bath, I pour mineral oil into the mouth of the inlet. I attach one end of the hose to the pump and submerge the other end into my bathwater. Then I plug in the pump. The water travels down the 25-foot outlet hose and waters the garden, filters down into the roots of the bamboo. Also moving downward are remnants of soap, shampoo, skin, part of a toenail, five hairs, and three drops of urine. And some amber-scented bath oil. I listen for the whine of the pump to know when to unplug it, a break in the rhythm that tells me air can’t be pumped by paddles that spin inside a chamber. Space displaces, and water is not infinite.
Out in the coop, the chickens hear the pump. They are used to it now. They do not know the name of it. They refer to it as the water displacement mechanism with the worm-like attachment. They view the moist area near the bamboo with suspicion, scratching the surface with an impatient backwards digging motion and, seeing no insects, move on to find something more enticing.
Near the cat door, the sound of ceramic bowls clanging, something more savory than beige crumble. We’ll have what they are having, the chickens cry out from the enclosure near the bamboo. Please bring us the yellow bucket of table scraps, a sprig of this or that.
