I like my photographs today... boats and bay always thrill me. But I couldn’t get my experience with the sparrows yesterday out of my mind. I’m not sure I’ve ever used the term “bird brain” to describe someone whose behavior is poorly chosen and erratic, but now I feel certain that I never shall. To do so would be to denigrate those little sparrows. Of course, Pavlov and a host of other behavioral scientists since his famous dog experiments would explain the behavior of yesterday’s sparrows outside the coffee shop as “conditioned responses.” I agree that what they were doing wasn’t exactly rocket science. They are conditioned to identify the paper bag with food. They’ve never ever got anything to eat from a coffee cup.

I think Robert Frost would have liked those birds. He would have thought of his poem, “Provide, Provide,” just as I have been thinking about it when I think of how I bought the friendship of the sparrows with bagel crumbs. Frost ends his poem with the advice:

“Better to go down dignified
With boughten friendship at your side
Than none at all. Provide, provide!”


PROVIDE, PROVIDE
by Robert Frost

The witch that came (the withered hag)
To wash the steps with pail and rag,
Was once the beauty Abishag,

The picture pride of Hollywood.
Too many fall from great and good
For you to doubt the likelihood.

Die early and avoid the fate.
Or if predestined to die late,
Make up your mind to die in state.

Make the whole stock exchange your own!
If need be occupy a throne,
Where nobody can call you crone.

Some have relied on what they knew;
Others on simply being true.
What worked for them might work for you.

No memory of having starred
Atones for later disregard,
Or keeps the end from being hard.

Better to go down dignified
With boughten friendship at your side
Than none at all. Provide, provide!