But What Bird, Innocence?

We were at The Royale, an odd little InteliPub (you know, one of those places the liquored intelligencia seem to hang) on St. Pat’s Day, trying to listen to Americans read the Irish Greats (Joyce, et. al.) over the din of tipsy loud voices, when, through a silly little chain of events not worth the typing, a younger-than-I gentleman had couriered to me a note that read, “Roses are Red/Violets are blue/if Irish stands for beauty/then St. Patrick’s day is you."

Well. That’s nice. Left to my own judgment I would have simply smiled at him and considered it as skeptically as I consider most other human male sexual behavior. However, through the younger and less ennui-tainted nearness of the Darling Duchess, the look on her face, her proclamation that these gestures are grand and that the man obviously had more substance than one’s usual barfly, I decided to tell him Thank You for the little ray of sunshine. Our Duchess thought that some of my utterances to her privately regarding the note’s author were slightly less grateful than they should be, and I felt appropriately bad about it. I was, again, skeptical of the intention, but decided to take it as a compliment that my middle age could receive graciously but without obligation, and leave to meet Metal Ox for the symphony at the appointed moment.

Sadly, for one always feel sad when innocence is betrayed, once I left The Royale and The Duchess got to talking with Damion and his male companion, things were altered. The Esteemed Poet not only began to hit on Our Lovely Duchess Poet, but proceeded therewith to inform her he’d actually written the note for her, not me.

To Her Grace’s credit she did not believe him.

Still, we are sad for her glimpse into the world in which one cannot take much of what one sees and hears from certain humans at face value. It was interesting to me, quite, though, to see this innocence in action. It was like seeing an extinct birdlet emerge from a lake. The surface breaks, a shape forms and rises, takes flight, its shape informs nothing in the patterns recognizable to one’s brain save maybe wings and feet, and then, “Oh my God, it’s a bird.” But what bird? Innocence?

To turn it, innocence doesn’t recognize that other Creature, the one emerging from the tree line on the shore. The one that wants the bird for dinner. Doesn’t care if it may be the last bird of its species alive. The creature, Wolf perhaps or something like him, is hungry, and that’s all he knows.

Maybe this is where the fairies went. Or why they hide. For over and over from the woods comes the howling, Trust me. Trust me. Why don’t you just trust me? and then the laughter or ridicule from the Creatures themselves when the bird does trust. Couldn’t you tell I/he wanted to eat you? Stupid. This is the twisted heart. This is the mix of this assertion and that assertion that only the strongest and clearest of women can survive -- intact.

For there is the more common reaction: women who shut down their hearts entirely and become Creatures themselves. It’s like becoming a mercenary to fight the mercenaries. It’s the opposite of what Gandhi taught. It’s fighting violence with violence, fire with fire. Identifying with the abusers. Becoming the abuser to avoid the pain of the abuse. So women, girls, close their hearts and proceed to behave as they are treated, loosely and callously, and lose their true selves in the process. This is not to say that all men are loose and callous. It is to say that they appear for whatever reason to be able to disconnect their hearts from their genitals, for the pursuit of sex is part of their hunting instinct, and few of them have risen out of their animal natures. It is not progress, then, for women to behave as men do in this; to have sex without heart. It is, rather, a slip backwards in evolution -- becoming animal because the animal (The Creature, Male) gets more power and money and privilege and general validation than The Bird. Where maleness is considered the standard and womanness The Other, those who are participating in this belief will emulate the standard and distance themselves from The Other. Duh. So, no, I don't think random or loveless sex is progress for women. No more than I think young girls giving blow jobs on school buses is progress. Both are just evidence humans can be callous and animal like, and that women will identify with and pander to the power group if need be. Both are sanctioned by participating men becuase, why not? it gets them more variety of sex partners, though for women it's a compromise of their true power and beauty. This is not to say I have a prescription for who should be having sex with whom! It is to say, simply, that it would be better for the human race where we all to behave with more heart instead of less, and become more full of heart in our sex and pursuit of sex. That we all my benefit for greater awareness of ourselves and our true motivations, and that we look deeply into the eyes of anyone we are considering meeting with in such a profound way, and recognizing who that human truly is before we enter their vulnerable selves -- even, and maybe even especially, when that person is pretending invulnerability. Imagine if it became the norm to see sexual interaction as a sacred trust between two people? If we really had to see one another, really. Rape and slavery and eventually, even war (for war is a similar dehumanizing animal passion gone out of control) would just die away. If persons were no longer objects. No longer targets for sex. Or shooting. Or bombs. Violence would just... Simply. Vanish. Rape and slavery and eventually, even war (for it is a similar animal passion gone out of control) would just die away. Just. Simply. Vanish.

I must have done this to some extent myself, right, or I would have shown innocence rather than skepticism at the note? Or not. Maybe it’s possible to have the knowledge, but not become the pattern. At any rate, that is my challenge. The breathing through that temptation toward becoming the inflicter in order to avoid being inflicted upon. Indeed, the breathing through these temptations to be ungenerous or angry. Or even flippant, which I may have been in the case of the poem.

And so we are sad for the little bird. And happy for it, too. It swooped away from The Creature. But is it the same little bird, now? Our prayer for it is that the next man it meets is the only man it ever needs, and that man is Trustworthy. For to live one’s life long with that fine bird alive in one’s heart may be a very great thing indeed, for one’s heart. Would that innocence were never broken. Seriously. Can there be that much kindness in a world of humans? To never break innocence? Is it way too innocent even to hope for such a thing?

As an offer to the Gods of Men, to appease my dear Men Friends and Lover, to prove that in spite of Creatures I still love all humankind equally, scroll down to the video link below to see a lovely man do something awesome on the fiddle.