Bluebird, what do you feed on?
I’ve recently read Carl Sandburg’s poem, Bluebird, what do you feed on?
It is a poem full of bugs and worms and kernels of corn. All the little mundane, ugly things that serve to keep the bluebird going.
The bluebird is gorgeous, mysterious, maybe even majestic. The blue in the bluebird is part of the sky, part of the lake. It is the blue of the life and the death of things.
The blue of the eternal sky and the eternal sea.
The bluebird we go to for valuable information, for the keys to the kingdom. Teach us bluebird, what it means to be alive.
The bug and the worm and the common corn are part of the beauty. No doubt. But it is not the mystery.
The mystery is the bluebird and what its beauty represents.
We see the corn and the bug and we are invited to see the beauty of the commonplace.
We see the bluebird and are invited to see the sky and the sea and the very idea of beauty in all its majesty.
But,
When we see the worm and the bird as one, we see the mystery of the human capacity to find unity in all things. We see the mystery of the mind and the eye and the heart escaping into the beauty of non-duality.
BLUEBIRD, WHAT DO YOU FEED ON?
Bluebird, what do you feed on?
It is true you gobble up worms, you
swallow bugs
And your bill picks up corn, seed,
berries.
This is only part of the answer.
Your feathers have captured a piece of
smooth sky.
Your wings are burnished with
lake-morning blue.
It is not a worm blue nor a bug
blue nor the blue
of corn or berry you shine with.
Bluebird, we come to you for facts,
for valuable
Information, for secret reports.
Bluebird, tell us, what do you
feed on?
Carl Sandburg
