A Cloud Of Birds

Recently I dreamed that I was alone in a suburban neighborhood. Wide green lawns surrounded big white houses, but the trees on these lawns were bare and wintry-looking. Bright sun gleamed in a clear blue sky, and the air was crisp and breezeless. All of the natural elements in this place—the green grass, the bald trees, even the big blue sky—had a manicured banality about them, and the atmosphere of the neighborhood was permeated by the mood of a desert.

Gazing above the roofs of the houses into the blank blue sky, I heard in my head the chorus of “In God’s Country” by U2. I don’t think I’ve heard this song in more than twenty years, but I remember that when I did hear it, I was intrigued by the melancholy mood it made, especially during the refrain

Sleep comes like a drug
In God’s country.

I began having envious, self-pitying thoughts along the lines of “Man what a gift to write a song so engaging about something so terrible....Why don’t I write songs like that....” et cetera. Then, in the midst of my brooding, a huge flock of birds suddenly appeared in the sky and dove down toward the ground. Wow, I thought, this is amazing! This is what you should concentrate on instead of all that other crap!

The birds landed on a lawn in front of one of the big houses and strutted around squalling on the green grass. For the first time I noticed three small children, the oldest of whom may have been seven years old at most, who had been playing on the lawn where the birds had just landed. They were squalling with excitement at the sudden presence of all these squalling birds.

I too was filled with excitement, and beholding these children in their knit caps and winter coats romping and shouting with all these rowdy indescribable birds, I felt compelled to compose a haiku in an attempt to honor this extraordinary ordinary moment.

In my mind I fitted words to the scene that I was steeped in, letting the pulse of the mood I was feeling guide my choices, so that it felt like I was tracing the poem, rather than contriving it. I remember feeling pleased at how easily the words that occurred to me were nestling into the 5-7-5 syllabic scheme of the haiku form. Then I woke up. And wrote down what I remembered.

A cloud of birds lands

on the lawn and squalls with all
the squalling children



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