Looking out on the lanai on a Sunday afternoon, the sun-drenched deck shines so bright it stings your eyes.
The silvery deck is peppered with little gray bulbs that are doves. Feathery bumps sun and pecking at their feathers, a few run after each other like wind-up toys with electric legs.
Twenty doves are waiting for the bird seed I put out at 5 p.m.
They have landed, one by one, in their little parachute wings and now sit waiting for the free food. They look like prisoners in a prison yard milling around in the hot sun or like the homeless waiting in line at a shelter.
Suddenly they grow still as a photograph, little feather biscuits stuck on the hot plate of the porch, their feather bellies warming on the sun-baked tile.
It is a hot Kona Sunday afternoon, just me and the doves and light music playing.
Kona afternoons are serious kine, the perfect definition of afternoon, only warmer, and 10 times more golden. They can melt you in your chair.
You look out and dream while you are awake, and being awake, you’re in a dream.
The green trees and the long palm-strands suddenly stop dead, falling asleep like a hypnotist commanded. Not one leaf so much as twitches an eyelid.
The whole afternoon is holding its breath.
It feels eerie, you sit quietly amazed at the perfect calm, and know this is what nature is here to teach us, stillness and reverence and to be really alive.
And then the wind begins to stir, palm fronds start bobbing again, and tree branches shake their head, waking up in surprise.
Nature’s back in action. The Kona afternoon is up and running. The doves on the deck start circling again on their twiggy legs, running, restless, remembering why they are here, for the seed.
They beat their feathers against the sliding screen door like prisoners rattling their tin cups on the bars. Flapping around like extras in “The Birds” by Alfred Hitchcock.
I get to my feet like an old grisly jailer and shuffle to the kitchen for the plastic bag of bird seed, the gruel to feed the prisoners. I have been doing this every day for years, and yet when I pull open the screen door, the doves fly up in a flurry of feathers and disappear like they never saw me before in their life.
Birds are not known for their memory, but they have survived since Jurassic days because of their fear. A good trait to have, as birds have been around a hundred times longer than us.
I wonder, as I pour out the pile of bird seed, if they are grateful for what I give? They come swarming in pecking frantically until it’s gone, not one ever nods a thank you. But what favor is it if I look for a reward? They entertain me, so where’s my thanks?
Birds know the secret, they leave it behind each day as they fly away, a pure and simple lesson – giving aloha needs no thank you.
Dennis Gregory writes a bimonthly column for West Hawaii Today and welcomes your comments at makewavess@yahoo.com