Beaks and minds

I saw standing on the stones of the riverbank

a dark bird with its back to me.

It turned its head to left, then right

revealing a beady eye

and an outrageous orange beak

almost as long as its head.

In some other world

I knew it as an oystercatcher.

 

I have seen different birds’ beaks adapted

in manifold ways to feed self and offspring.

 

I have also seen human minds adapted to their purpose:

displaying stabbing verbal sharpness

or the scattering gloom of anxiety

or the tight gleam of avarice.

 

And I have seen the enlightened mind

intimate with everything

like a soft beak the colours of the rainbow

big enough and flexible enough

to nourish the world.

From: Some Palaeolithic Creature in Me

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