Mississippi Kite

The city Parks officer rang our doorbell at about a quarter to 3.  It was a bright August day in ‘87.  I was 7 years old.  My brothers and I knew why she had come.  As my dad answered the door we hid in the kitchen so we could hear and not be seen.

“My name is Shirley and I’m with the City Parks and Recreation Department.”  She was a big women with a crew cut on top of a great big head.  ‘Butch’ my dad would later call her.  Shirley explained that she had followed us from the park and needed to talk about what we’d been doing.  My father listened intently it seemed, but I could sense a smirk on his face.

“Do you know what a Mississippi Kite is sir?”  My dad replied that he didn’t.  “It’s an endangered bird of prey.  One of them is nesting in the park where I saw your sons throwing rocks at it.”  This was entirely true.

Exactly how we discovered the Mississippi Kite I can’t recall, but we weren’t the first to notice her.  We were the first, I think, to play with her.  Throwing rocks was boring and pointless really.  There was no way any of us could hit her even though she was huge.  The bird had a wingspan of about four feet from what we could tell, and we had a pretty good idea since we found a way to get it to attack us.  What we did was get her attention with a rock or two, and then we would ride our bikes up a man made hill some distance away.  The hill was about 30 feet high and smooth all the way down which made it a perfect launching point.  After the bird was sufficiently aware we were some sort of danger to her eggs, or chicks  or whatever she had up there, we would tear ass down the hill and cross a clearing in the trees.  Once the rider entered the clearing, the Kite would instinctively swoop down from the trees and buzz the rider.  It was an incredible rush to see a falcon-like bird flapping its wings, looking straight at you, and whizzing by at a high rate of speed.  The goal was to get to the other side of the clearing and remain on your bike.  Most often we’d ditch just as the bird passed over.  I guess we were scared it would claw our eyes out or something. We did this almost everyday for a week, until Shirley caught us.  We were throwing rocks to get the bird’s attention when we saw a truck coming through the park in our direction.  Instinctively we ran.

After Shirley finished explaining the situation, she revealed that no one was in any trouble as long as we left the endangered beast alone.

Dad couldn’t resist asking a couple of questions.

“How many of these ‘Mississippi Kites’ are there?”  He said the name as if it were someone’s imaginary friend.

“Less than a thousand.”  Butch replied.

“Well, I only have 3 boys.  Who’s more endangered?”  Butch walked away shaking here sizable head, and my dad shut the door with a smile.

IF

Claustrophobic mirage of tangled webs,

Caustic thoughts and mangled heads,

Electronic voices call,

Broken hearts they fall and fall,

Unspoken choice is no choice at all. . .

Each way is a wrong turn,

Each word is the wrong thing to say,

Each sunny day is a burn.

I don’t know how it will end,

’till then, IF is my only friend.