What Is It About Birds?

My favorite songs are about birds. They are a convenient poetic device, I guess, due to behavior patterns like migration and characteristics like their wings, their feathers, and their hollow bones. Oh, and they sing, too. That’s not to mention that my favorite songs are in Spanish, and even the ordinary sounds intriguing in a second language.

My favorite song for years has been Ramón Ayala’s rendition of Mi Golondrina, a song about a swallow that comes and goes, and the narrator isn’t quite sure if she’ll return. It’s the song I keep singing, while wondering if my own swallow will return — that is, poetry. I used to write poems. I know it’s asking a lot of a song to contain my longing for the intangible … but that’s exactly what good songs do.

Another is El Coyote’s Amor Pajarito. This one is a sad song about a little bird heart that is always getting entrapped. There’s something enchanting to me about a little bird heart. I suppose my bird heart is trapped in his singing. I really do love El Coyote’s voice; sometimes I listen to an 180-song playlist someone compiled on YouTube. The combination of bright brass instruments, emotive vocals and a little bird is the triangulation of perfection. The perfect song. La canción de canciones.

Back to Maestro Ramón, he has a rather dark song called Gaviota. It’s a song about a man whose love is a seagull who has flown away across the ocean. Because he doesn’t have wings as she does and can’t follow her, he decides that if he finds her by the sea, he will clip her wings to keep her with him. I’m not sure that kind of love works out well, but the song is lovely and contemplative nonetheless. I’ve always liked the sound of this: para qué, para qué si no hay por qué. But there always will be a why. She’ll always ask why, and she won’t understand.

There is, of course, the requisite song about a lovelorn man who wants to save the Ave Cautiva like that above. I refer to a song by Conjunto Primavera. The sad part is he will be no more successful at rescuing his love than the man who wants to keep his love by force. Well, I suppose miracles always happen, but people trapped in abusive relationships are often addicted to their cages and won’t leave even if the door is left open.

I could go on and on. I thought of a song about a Paloma Blanca (White Dove), and one about a little dove (El Palomito) with incredible accordion parts, and another called Quisiera Ser Pajarillo (I Want to be a Little Bird). Actually, that latter one has really pretty lyrics. And I do want to be a bird. In the same manner as the above songs, Psalm 55:6 makes me wistful: And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest. Or, because this post has a Spanish theme: Y dije: ¡Quién me diese alas como de paloma! Volaría yo, y descansaría.

Birds leave; birds return and bring olive branches. They soar with wings outstretched. And they sing. Don’t forget that. And if they don’t find the nest they once abandoned, they build a new one. Maybe that’s what it’s all about for me: buscando un nido.

It just occurred to me that my dad also loves birds. This is what I could capture on a screenshot, but it barely scratches the surface on his bird images: