The Kindness of Birds — Merlinda Bobis

Amidst COVID-19, planetary and personal upheavals, fourteen stories pay homage to kindness. From Australia to the Philippines and other corners of the world, across cultures and species, we meet, connect, console. Always there are birds that inspire us to remember kindness and remember kindly. We are consoled, because there is unkindness too, that snag in the breath, that shadow of a wing. An oriole sings to a dying father. A bleeding heart dove saves the day. A quarrel over cockatoos attends the laying of the dead. A crow wakes a woman's resolve. Kindness cannot self-isolate. It moves both ways and all ways, like breath.