Empty Space

Pair of Scarlet Macaws (Ara macao): photo by Matthew Romack, 24 February 2008

for Harris Schiff

Maybe it is possible that we were all young once. And that she would have loved us then. But the trouble is, at that time, she would not have been born... but even so. And we thought we were reaching up to the sky. But the sun was in our eyes. But she did not know that, how could she have known that, not yet having been born. For her, waiting there inside the realm of the purely possible, for all those Dereks, it was all pure radiance. For us it was all pure love. And the radiance... nothing but the air, the space, the love, her, us... all those light years of empty space, no make-up... the two great birds screeching outside the window, the wind moving slightly in the palms... the green depths... the infinity of our love... which she would never come to know... all we wished to do, in our hearts, was to make a nest in her heart... we hoped she would never learn English so that she would always need us to be there, teaching her, yet she would be heedless of our need, of the great selfless power of the feeling that was going out of us, toward her, beyond words, beyond ingles, beyond all palabras, beyond everything, looking up into dazzling boundless blue sky, shielding our eyes from its dangerous yet impossibly compelling magnitude, the greatest thing, the funny thing, the thing before all other things... and then she would begin to understand, and swim up toward the light with us, and all her stingrays would follow along with her, and they would be singing along with her, saying, Yeah, it's alright,¡adelante!

Southern stingray (Dasyatis americana): photo by Albert Kok, 31 January 2008

Hoffman's Two-toed sloth (Choloepus hoffmanni), Manuel Antonio National Park, Costa Rica: photo by Leyo, 2005

Angry Scarlet Macaw (Ara macao), Belize (I got too close): photo by James O'Neal Lowery, 4 April 2004; image by Sapphic, 22 March 2007

Three-wattled Bellbird (Procnia tricaruculatus) (male), Costa Rica: photo by Ryan Kozie, 13 April 2008; edit by Snowmanradio, 10 November 2010

Resplendent Quetzal (Pharomacus mocinno costaricensis) (male), Savegre, Costa Rica: photo by Jimfbleak, 27 February 2006

Resplendent Quetzal (Pharomacus mocinno costaricensis) (male), leaving nest hole, Savegre Mountain Hotel, Costa Rica: photo by Joseph C. Boone, 11 March 2012

Doris butterfly (Heliconius doris). Characteristics are two white spots on fore-wing, scalloped margin of hind wing, marginal row of small, white spots along the hind wing. The fan with fingers is orange here but can also be blue or green. Native to Costa Rica: photo by MamaGeek, 8 October 2007