Veeries

Veeries. Netflix. Hurricanes.

I

Used to speed through the trees
And landed safety
everytime
In the peace I found 
There. The safe place. 
But being back here.
I don’t feel it anymore. 

I once had innate sense, 
so innate I never recognized it. 
Until I ended up in the net. 
And since then, the sense is all I think about

The sense is gone. 
Now trees are fear
Peace is just what might not happen
It never felt like that before 
the net. 

Year after year (though I never called them years back then), 
I’d know it was time to fly miles and miles back home
From the warm safe place
Across the ocean
to where I was born. 

Home was filled with stores of love.
It’s just breeding now
It’s just male and female
Hatching and eggs
We all precipitate into one clunky mass
Back then, it was a cloud

Love was always found at home
It is a deep woods 
And it’s brimming with love
Usually found at the tip of a lake. 
And we’d make life happen.

The-man-who-caught-me also taught me all these words
“Science” and “life”
“year”, and “miles”, 
“Breeding” “hatching” “eggs” “migration” “patterns”
Taught me the word “Veery” too.
That’s what he calls me. 
Well not me
The all of us
I’m just “one veery” of “many veeries”

But I didn’t know any of this 
when I was flying back there.
I was just listening for the sounds I always listened for. 
Sounds were love
Clear as the lake

Now I know words,
it’s not knowing anymore.
When I didn’t know, 
it just was.
You know?

The sense could never be described using words
Like the man did constantly. 
And now that I know his words. 
I don’t understand it either. 

Just before
the net.
The sound was life
growing crisper and crisper. 
Clearer and clearer.
I was nearer and nearer. 
As if made for only me. 

This sound filled my floating body like air.
For a moment. 
But just when I was nearest to it, 
my wings stopped
Pressed against my body. 
The stillest I’ve been
since before hatching.

I sang new noises never made before.
It’s what the sense had me do. 
The first time awareness of sense.  
There was me and something outside of me. 
There were many things.
It wasn’t everything anymore. 
And the sense is gone ever since.

The net
The words
They helped me understand things
But they didn’t help me.

I’d known nothing but freedom
before learning my name. 
And hearing the my first words
”It’s in the net”
I learned innate sense can be taken away. 
Or redefined.
And when you learn that.
The old understanding isn’t possible anymore.

I don’t know how long I sat there. 
While he tagged me and taught me.
Knowledge drove the extinction
The innate sense flew right through it
My only point of reference
Lost in the trees.

Knowledge gave me time.
Knowledge gave me purpose. 
But fly away with knowledge
And leave something behind
Cast past a net for old Veeries to find

II

“So can you tell us why these little birds are so special?” the Netflix Documentary host asked me. “There’s something about these little guys that will BLOW us away?”

I answered, I had my talking points and fun facts all prepared in advance. The PR team and producers told me I should be punchy with lots of “fun facts.” I also hate puns. Like I hate poems. They’re too creative. And hated being set up this way.

“Veeries are a very important and connected element of the ecosystem. They are intratropical migrators…”

“Woah!” interrupted the host. “Can you explain that to me in English?”

I was a little perturbed that modern day media was still making this joke. I’m not funny. I didn’t prepare jokes. All I knew were punchy and number-ridden facts. The things people should care about. Why did they even choose me to be in this documentary?

“The birds fly to Brazil. Which is 6,983 kms away.”

“Kilometers? How many miles is that for us Americans?” 

Damn it… I wish this host had prepared more interesting questions in advance.

I wish my research wouldn’t be represented among this slew of hack jokes. But it was good for the science for more to know. A Canadian scientist on American Netflix? This was my shot so I could play along. 

“About 4,300 miles.”

“Wow!”

“Yupp. And that’s not even the best part.” 

Nice. I showed enthusiasm. And I’m the one getting us back on track. Isn’t that supposed to be the host’s job?

“Ah yes… why don’t you tell us about your research?” asks the host realizing I’m doing his job for him. 

“Basically I noticed a correlation between Veery mating patterns and changes in hurricane data. In especially long hurricane seasons, it seems Veeries cut their mating short before migrating to Brazil.:

“In English, Doc!!”

I really thought I had already dumbed it down. So I just ignored his question and continued. 

“By researching Veery migration patters, I basically was able to predict the length and severity of the last hurricane seasons. And using my data, I was able to produce a more accurate prediction of hurricane weather patterns year-after-year than some of the Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration computer models.”

“Like the Price is Right.”

“No. Not really.” 

“You know, like you were the best guesser?”

“I wasn’t really guessing…”

The host looked at the producer with an edit-that-out face, then back to me. “Go on.” 

“Uhm… that’s about it I guess.”

“Doctor, are you saying Veeries can predict hurricanes?”

“Well I suppose it’s a little more nuanced… It seems Veeries have some connection to weather patterns and use this to determine when to migrate from Brazil back to Canada. But I can’t definitively say they ‘predict’ hurricanes.” 

“Sounds like a predicition to me…”

”Well no, you see these creatures aren’t concious or it’s impossible to determi…”

The host threw up his hands and rolled his eyes to the trees.

“Simon can you talk to him?” 

Without a look back, the host walked away from me and started vaping on a grape juice flavoured pen (I knew the flavour because he announced it when he came in to the research centre).

Simon, the producer, approached me and had a phony look of calm. He was going to tell me something I didn’t want to hear.

“Hey doc.”

No one has ever called me this except these two TV people. I have a PhD in Biological Climate Science not an MD.

“Hey Simon.” 

“Great job so far, I just knew you’d be the right guy to have on the show. I just can tell you’re a guy who loves telling a great story.” 

Not true. I hate creativity. But I didn’t want to be rude.

“Thanks. I feel like this research is interesting and glad you appreciate it.”

“Just so you know, with this documentary show, we’re trying to tell a narrative our audience is going to love and it helps us out a lot if we can really make the story as simple as possible.” 

A twinge in my gut, like the one I got when defending my PhD. Not knowing whether a beating or a favour was coming, but either way it was bad. 

“So what do you need?” 

“I just need you to agree with the host when he asks you if Veeries can predict hurricanes.” 

“But that’s not exactly what my research show…”

“Doc, let me tell you, that I understand that more than anybody. Science is complicated. You’ve only done one section of the research needed to make a bold claim like that. But you’re a smart guy, so let me give it to you straight. The audience watching this show wants things to be as simple as possible. They have to be able to go up to someone at their next party ,or at work, and be able to launch a fast fact. The simpler and more astounding, the better. ‘Veeries predict hurricanes’ is one of those kinds of facts. Really cool. Really easy to remember. And the more people that know that, the more famous your research becomes!” 

“I understand that but I don’t want to misrepresent the scien…”

“Why don’t we do one that’s simpler and one that is explained in more detail. And we can use both in editing. Sometimes these things can get way too long.”

“Isn’t it on Netflix… can’t you make episodes as long as you wan…?”

“So you’ll do it?”

“Yah sure, I guess.” 

I hated myself.

“Thanks Doc.”

They cut out everything in post. All they left in was the “explain it in English” joke and me saying “yes” to an oversimplified question. A lot of people talked about it at their work the next day though. And I got a lot more downloads on my research paper. 

III

Do I chase birds? 
Or do they chase me? 
In the question lies the problem. 
It can be both. 
It can be neither. 
That’s how cycles work. 

I’m the same force that will let a person live safely stranded on an island
And wipe out the place he came from
Only for him to realize 
Destruction is the only reason they exist in the first place
Well it’s not destruction, but re-birth
But again
It’s both
It’s neither
It’s how cycles work

Living things can’t say no to me. 
Can’t turn me the other way. 
I give fair warnings in my own way. 
If you were connected, like birds, and rivers, and trees are, 
You’d know that too. 

Birds just know how to listen. 
Know how to stay out the way.
They don’t need to ask questions 
Because they have answers in the feathers.
passed on genetically

Questions
Who, what, when, why, how
End, beginning, middle
Ever just used that gut of yours? 
I’m just one big gut
Swirling of forces your phrasing couldn’t capture. 
Birds’ guts are in their wings,
They use them all the time. 

People have too many questions. 
Parcel them up, put in a cage.
a cage constructed of categories and words and definitions
Reality is… - It’s not. It does like it’s supposed to. 
Why do I exist?
What should they call me?
How do they fight me? 
How do they survive me? 
When can they forget about me?
Never try to answer. Do what I do.
I just try to be forever. It’s how cycles work. Forever stays.
Say my name all you like. As your books and maps are blown away all that’s left is.
Here.
Unattached water earth sky
(a) Ru n n ing past and future tense into now
Remembering
I’m not a crisis.
Crisis only reveals crisis within.
All in all
Needing nothing needs lots
Everything is everything until it’s not

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