Ms. Robin

I think the Robin is the most forlorn of all the birds. I used to think of robins in terms of “a flock on the front yard” – harbingers of spring, as the old poets used to say – but what I have seen on my front lawn of latter years is the single robin . . . looking for her flock.

She stops upon a feeder or bench or post – and she looks. Last year, when I noticed this, I thought she signaled a flock on the way:  she, the designated scout, as I imagined her, must have arrived from more-southern territories to peruse the environs and by secret transmission to send messages of approbation to the rest of her group – and then to watch and await their arrival.

But her flock never came. That was February of last year – then came March, April – I suppose I lost interest in her for-longings after that.

The robins of my childhood arrived suddenly in great flocks that fed noisily upon bread crumbs I had put out on the front lawn. Who is this single, forlorn robin who perches on the feeder but hardly cares to eat from it? She’d rather watch for the flock that never comes.

In mid-February, other varieties of birds are busy darting, pecking, feeding, and preening themselves for mating season just around the corner. From them, I sense spring on the horizon.  I've read that some people believe Valentine's Day, and the love which it symbolizes, may have originated because of these signals which the birds give us. But Ms. Robin is depressed. She plans for no mate, preens for no season. She is the harbinger of a past century.

She’ll hop a one-quarter turn on the feeder to be sure her group is not coming from that direction – and then hop another quarter-turn to see whether this view might show better news – and once again, the quarter-turn hop – and back to where she began.

There is darkness in her eyes, tiredness from the endless search; her famed and oft-talked-about red breast is a stain she carries in front of her – rust – as though to say, this is what I’ve become.  A relic from ages past.

Day after day, she looks – the moniker, harbinger of spring, no longer her leading role . . . as though she too were looking for that harbinger of spring – where? When? How?