“My heart in hiding stirred for a bird.” These words come from Gerard Manley Hopkins, the celebrated Jesuit poet of the 19th century. He was so far ahead of his poetic time, however, that he could have written in the 20th century.
If you took courses in English literature, the way I did, you would have discovered him to be either a great minor poet or a minor great poet. In any event, he was a marvelous innovator who had a transformative impact on poetry in our language.
Incidentally, I feel a special bond with Hopkins, if only because we shared the Jesuit experience. In fact, I lived for a year in the castle-like house in northern Wales where he wrote some of his best poetry.
But otherwise, he was very different from me, especially in his artistic brilliance and sensitivity to his natural surroundings. Wales, for him, was a wonderland whereas for me it ranked as a place to be endured.
I have wandered away from birds, however, my chosen subject today. Though I am not a poet like Hopkins, my heart too has been stirred for a bird. It has taken a small one to have this effect on me, to wit, a bar-tailed godwit.
If you are addicted like me to the Science section of the NYTimes, you too would have recently discovered the saga of the godwits. Their yearly adventure ranks as the most amazing feat of birddom I have ever heard of.
Here’s what these birds do. With the change of seasons, they migrate from southern Alaska to New Zealand. On this trip through the air, they travel 7,100 miles, nonstop and they cover the distance in nine days and nights!
And on their way they do not stop at any MacDonald’s or other fast-food establishments. Instead, with foresight they have gorged themselves on clams and worms before leaving.
Some scientists have been studying the godwits for decades. But only recently have they had satellite transmitters that can be surgically implanted in the birds’ bodies. These ingenious devices enable biologists to track the flight of their subjects with precision. So the figures shared with you here are not products of anyone’s imagination.
But imagination is the point for me. Learning of the immigration feats of these small creatures renews my wonder at the natural world. How can these birds survive such flights and how do they know enough to pinpoint their destination?
The only appropriate human response, I believe, is awe. Yes, the world continues to reveal phenomena that still call forth wonder. No matter what the human incursions on nature, we have not spoiled it all. Not yet, at least.
But think what it would have done to the lives of these birds if the air above the Pacific Ocean had been despoiled, as the waters of the Gulf of Mexico have been violated. Too easily, one can imagine pollution that would make impossible the immigration path of the bar-tailed godwits.
And it remains altogether too easy to see a future in which the shores on which the birds’ pre-departure feast is poisoned by an oil slick. Gone over the last few weeks is any public confidence that such will not happen.
Back to awe, I believe it to be especially valuable in later life to cherish this outlook. Instead of accepting the idea that we have already been there and done that, if we stay open to new wonders of which the earth remains quite full, then we can feel rejuvenated.
You can accuse me of stretching things a bit, but I find added meaning in the name of this particular bird – godwit. It allows of a theological application, at least if you share my interest in that arcane subject.
For me, the name suggests that the creator of the godwit has a sense of humor. Surely divine wit plays a part in the achievements of this astonishing bird. How else would that supreme maker have had the motivation to devise birds that can outfly so many other winged creatures by such a margin?
The birds themselves may not display much wit. What they engage in is serious living. The scientists have observed that when the godwits arrive at their distant destination, they are exhausted. Flapping your wings over that time and space must demand a huge exertion.
But the author of their evolution surely does have wit. For me, science has revealed marvels that deserve laughter as well as wonder. My heart stirs with the exploits of these birds. Hopkins would have made much of them had he known of their flights. For him they would have been flights of fancy.
For this writer, a decidedly unpoetic soul, godwits are fellow creatures to be approached with empathy and awe. May they long flourish in and over this uncertain world.