THE HONEY BIRD

A Monologue by Darwin Hageman

Inspired by and in honor of Schubert's Lieder

Oh, Sweetie, there is the Honey Bird, singing in the morning light,
Get me my slippers, I think I left them in the bathroom,
This was always my room, so beautiful, and I always have kept it clean.
We will have scones for breakfast, like the British people do,
The Honey Bird is singing, oh at last, it is passing our way, to sing it's song.
It's wings are the color of honey, just like the honey that comes out of the bottle.
I was never curious about where the Honey Bird went when it is not here,
After all, all of us creatures have to live our lives, and then divide our desires by half.
One, you know, one has to, divide everything in half, we can only have a half portion of butter,
And we can have only one half of the cream in our coffee, everything, everything
Yes, Sweetie, is by halves, and you see? You brought me the wrong slippers.
One has to compromise and then improvise, and half the sky is behind you
One can never see all of the sky, but you get used to it, it is like a dream, that thought
Of what is behind you, and there is the singing of the Honey Bird, at last it came home.
The other day when I found that I had come back from Death's Door, oh, that darling door,
I never thought I would ever live again and begin again and use the tea strainer one more time
It was divine, and the time passed so quickly that I had no time to even consider my thoughts.
Now I consider them and now I am totally certain I was right, for when I came out of
Death's Door, I heard the song of the Honey Bird, whose wings are the color of honey
Right out of the jar, and how far could I go, for I could hardly walk, and yet, there I was!
Wasn't I always, Sweetie, right there? Oh, no please, I do not like a used paper napkin.
And if the telephone rings, Sweetie, please put a sock in its mouth or a pillow over it, I am
Listening, please, to the song of the beautiful and most beautiful that ever was and shall ever be
Because it is and was and always will be only born for me, the Honey Bird whose nest
Some day I am going to find and crawl up whatever tree and watch it sitting on its eggs.
And then I will crawl down that tree, whatever it is, and kneel down on the dirty earth
And I will sing a song to God of praise for old lazy me who would never have thought,
Since I was a child to climb a tree, and I would only climb it because of the Honey Bird
You know, my darling one, some dreams, not often, but at times, do come true.
Lengths of hair and lengths of thread go into everything we wear, I don't know
Whose hair or whose threads, for probably by now they are all dead, or are or were
Whether it was a him or whether it was a her, one has to say, "Thank You", for the hair
And the thread, and I always knew that the Honey Bird, when building its nest
Chose only the very best fallen hair, on the earth that was left by some beautiful person's head
Or the very best thread from the most expensive Scottish wool shop in Ireland
That had fallen from a scarf worn by a very rich and handsome man's neck
And that is how to make a nest, use the very best, and let the rest go.
Long times have passed that will never come again and long paths were wandered
Dusty roads and the ins and outs of other people's gardens and other people's garbage
But I did it to see what the world was about, after all it doesn't just belong to them
It belongs to you, Sweetie, and me, too, and I never ever complained that it was theirs
I just want a little itsey bitsey part of what was created by God with his magic wand
And then I go on singing my song of praise, that is all it is about, if you have wings
And you can sing, I mean my voice was, in my youth, a thing of pleasure, now I am
Rather hoarse and coarse and no longer attractive in my sounds, but it is the heart
I was never rather smart, either, in my being attracted to men who were not men
At all, just because they were taller than I was, and had more hair on their bodies than I did
It did not change a thing, and meant nothing, but there was always the Honey Bird
Who had feathers that glistened in the light and actually glowed at night, for I
Had the glorious experience of seeing the Honey Bird standing on a limb in moonlight.
You have never seen my mouth gape, no, I never gape, never had and never will again
But then I commited a sin, yes, it was the one and only time I commited a sin
I tried, but it was not to hurt anybody, to invite the Honey Bird in, to land on my hand
And it flew away, and all I thought was, well it will come back any other day,
And it has! It forgave me and I would not have confined it, oh, no, not ever.
Sweetie, Sweetie, there it is, now, now, now, there it is, outside the window, in the moonlight
Tonight, there on the limb of the silver fir, that was planted so many years ago by my father
It is there, singing its song, and take my hand, and help me stand again and help me walk,
But be very quiet, shush, hush, we do not want to startle the most beautiful bird in the world
Now, do we? No, we do not want to startle the most beautiful bird in the world.
We will go softly to the window so that one more time I can see the.........

THE END

RETURN TO HOMEPAGE