Before you play the wounded bird
think of the charadrius vociferus commonly known as the killdeer. Because she builds her nest in shortgrass fields and sometimes parking lots, nature compensates with a behavior called injury feigning. She attempts to protect her fledglings by making a strident and piping sound as she hops on the ground, and flaps a fake broken wing hoping to fool the cunning coyote with a plaintive over here, over here. As I walk down a country road and harken to her cry, I reply, “I am not your enemy.” Driven by fear and destined by nature ever to be the wounded bird, she’s incapable of grasping that distinction. And you? |
AuthorNancy Harris McLelland taught creative writing, composition, and literature for over twenty years and Conducted writing workshops for the Western Folklife Center, Great Basin College , and the Great Basin Writing Project . An Elko County native with a background in ranching. McLelland has presented her "Poems from Tuscarora" Both at daytime and evening events at the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko. Her essay, "Border Lands: Cowboy Poetry and the Literary Canon" is in the anthology Cowboy Poetry Matters . Categories |