The Turkey Whisperer
March's theme for Soul Food Sundays is Source
a still from some footage I took today
Y’all it is spring. And I FEEL IT. I feel like I too am in bloom.
This morning, I went to shoot footage for a video poem at Jedediah Smith Trail along the American River in Sacramento. At some point, I hurriedly packed my equipment and scurried out of the high-grass,unpaved area I was in because these turkeys were turkeying and getting real close. I don’t know what I thought the turkeys would do, but I knew it was their hood, and I like my turkeys at a distance. Despite my frightened energy, the turkeys were really beautiful, feathers fanning out at their backs.
When I started to make my way back towards my car, I noticed a man stopped ahead on the trail. His bike beside him. On the other side of the trail, directly across from him, were the two turkeys I saw earlier. As I was passing him, I noticed he was calling the turkeys…like calling them in turkey language y’all. I was so shook. Like he would gobble (who decided that turkeys “gobble” anyhow lol) But yes, he would gobble, and the turkeys would gobble back with such a heightened energy. I laughed and gasped and in my head, I was like, wow, this man knows how to speak Turkey. Here I am running from turkeys, and this man is one with them. I started pondering about those powerful relationships where humans are one with nature and the environment. I started imagining a more at peace and more connected me, connected with all that lives around me.
The man biked passed me, saying “those birds are crazy” with a smirk. There was my chance. Can I ask you a question? He stops pedaling and looks back from the appropriate pandemic distance. How long have you been doing that?
For a long while. He explains how he used to hunt, but not recreationally. The way he spoke about it felt as if he was not longer able to hunt. Regardless, his answer revealed that the original purpose of his bird song was to lure in prey. To bring the wings to him, and then clip them. With aw, he talked about how turkeys could be yards away but will still make their way to his call. He said he doesn’t hunt anymore, but he still uses this. He held something akin to a whistle. A turkey caller. In that moment I realized that man does not speak turkey, does not sing bird songs, and likely does not understand them either. (LOL, I really convinced he was akin to a Turkey Beatboxer).
Although my awe was found to be misdirected, it was still a gift to feel. For my mind to blossom in wonder. For my smile to curve and open and question what are he and those turkeys talking about?!
I can’t help but to consider this turkey calling as metaphor. Of building trust, of speaking common language, not for their own sake, but to be used as a control tactic. Turkey walking in the direction of their hunter. Does the turkey believe its downfall to be at the hands of their own species, or do they meet the true identity of their killer?
And what of the songs I sing?
What is at risk in our language? In the sung and unsung? Why does American liberty confuse itself with the ring of a gun?
This morning I sang into my journal. It was medicine after a week that felt non-stop. Felt like a reunion with myself and others. Like confrontation. Like attempting to give language to what I normalized as silence. Well it’s spring. And it looks like at least a few of my fears are done hibernating in my chest, done hiding. Feels like I got a few songs leaping from my throat. Like something is opening, in me, all around me.
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