Telegrams of the Soul

The Kingfisher

The kingfisher was already ever since childhood my favorite bird.

This contrast between “delicate bird” and “stark winter chill”!

On top of which he’s iridescently tinged blue-green like a hummingbird in the tropical forests! The winter hummingbird!

His sharp pointed beak spears little fish out of the water; like harpoons spear whales!

He sits on the lookout for days on end, perched on a tree stump beside a pond. Suddenly he shoots forward, dives under, and spears. An elegant killer.

He robs the carp ponds clean of fish. Nobody would put it past him. For days on end he waits on a tree stump, tinged green-blue, his beak a lance, a sword, a dagger, a fatal needle!

A “romantic retainer” decked out in blue-green iridescent armor! A fairy-tale hero of nature!

Lilly had a pond dug on the grounds of her grandfather’s estate, had it bordered with willow, alder, hazel shrubs, oleaster. She had the whole thing caged in by a fine chain-link fence. And she put in a kingfisher. And now she watches him for hours on end roosting and waiting. The master of the pond!

Consequently, the compliments of the gentlemen callers who hope to subdue her delicate soul all sound vapid and laughable.

She is consumed, consumed by the laws of nature and by its mysteries—.

In contrast to which, every man appears petty and pitiful. He’s nothing but a “fumbling, brutal, uncomely” kingfisher. He too waits hours, days on end, to trap his prey! He spears and devours. But it isn’t “measly minnows” that he devours, slays! He slays “souls”!