We do not sing, we soar, and one day I rode the jet stream from the southern hemisphere and found my way to the island that has forever hosted the only singing school of its quality. As I approached the soft spot in the valley between sea and dark crags, the tangled songs I heard were enough to scare me into indefinite soar. All those songs, so many singers singing them, the way they were singing enough to make trees weep and rustle, the surrounding palms wild with singing as though agitated by a gale. But this particular caw is not about this school in general but a particular time recently in its history, a time worthy of considerable cawing, so rare is the story I will relate as it has been sung in fragments, slips of melody, bursts of cackling, and the gentle soothing cooing of the most tender doves. The story as far as I can caw it begins with the demise of the great warhawk who led the school for hundreds of perpetual summers. I have already emphasized my size and wingspan, the indescribable terrors avoided by not describing my talons, but the warhawk, with each student who flew to the island with a hesitant song unclearly formed in its breast, with each successful departure from the island of every renowned graduate, his wings became fuller, his talons longer and sharper, his song brighter, his plumage more saturated in attractive ink, until recently, when his feathers one by one lost their luster and fell out, the proud red crest darkened and fell flat, the curved point of his beak weakened till it seemed no more threatening than a human thumb, and most disturbingly, his song, once a mighty, throaty, fluid burst from his avian gut, now sounded like a fledgling’s tentative tweet. And yet the weaker his song became the stronger the call went out throughout the world. 

All the finest singers opened their wings and returned to the island and the soft spot in the valley between sea and dark crags, and there they sang songs about the old warhawk, how he had transformed their songs forever, how his might and reputation for lashing out had put a pressure in them that transformed songs of coal into solos of prismatic clarity. The songbirds of the world loved the old warhawk and when his song disappeared forever, four singers were chosen to remain on the island to take nests in trees to each of the four directions, to sit and prepare the songs they would sing to the singing school’s current students and the surviving colleagues of the warhawk. Of course, it would be impossible to replace the warhawk with his equivalent. For hundreds of perpetual summers he had pressured students to to sing as though their hearts were in their hands, that is, if they had hands like humans, but the idea was not to replace the warhawk with another warhawk, but to replace him with a sort of bird who would become a legend in its own right, who would best serve the past, present, and future of singing. The colleagues of the warhawk refused to take over the warhawk’s position, having grown accustomed to their patterns of flight and wary of the additional responsibilities the warhawk had so wonderfully managed. Chief among these responsibilities was selecting each new flock of students. Thousands flew to the island each year to stand before a group of singing students and the warhawk and sing and await selection, for if selected they would stay, if not, they would fly home and some would never sing again, or if they did, they only did so sadly, quietly, and alone, far from anyone’s ears, a silencing process that enabled the graduates to more easily fill the airwaves with their songs, for rarely did the rejected ever sing again. 

Not all of the songbirds who returned to the island to see the warhawk off were trained to sing at this particular singing school, however. Other schools exist, of course, some not so removed from the world as this one, others farther north, or closer to human cities. Some say these singing schools produced preferable singers because training there was more in tune with the sounds (if not songs) of the world. Some say this, and for some this may be perfectly true, but the songs of the school in the soft spot of the valley between sea and dark crags are the songs on which the songs of the cities and northern schools base their singing, and as such with complete respect hundreds of city singers descended to pay their respect to the old warhawk upon his death. Of those hundred, many had comfortable nests in trees surrounding cities or were too attracted to their flight pattern to consider accepting an invitation to compete to replace the warhawk, and others were more than willing to suceed the warhawk but deemed unacceptable without interview. The heads of the central city school and the northern school were invited, and since these songbirds were renowned teachers of song themselves who had learned so much from the warhawk without ever having sung before him as students, they flew to the tropics to see if they might assume the responsibility of overseeing the world’s songs for hundreds of years of perpetual summers, especially since so often they had lost prized students to the warmer clime and distractionless sweetness of the soft spot in the valley between sea and dark crags. 

And so in a northern tree was placed the candidate from the northern school, an older eagle, known for his ability to mimic the songs of every bird on this earth, having spent so much time studying all the songs in his days of younger flight, now retreated to the tundra where he can reproduce all these songs for his students in an expanse of territory where no birds naturally sing at all. In the eastern nest they placed the head of the central city school, a falcon whose songs swept with thrilling speed across a range as wide as the sky, a falcon still unproven as a singer, whose songs excited but were not so accessible, who seemed to sing from a place just above his own wings rather than from his gut like the warhawk, and so, because of this, no one thought the falcon from the city school --  a bird of excitement if not accessibility, a bird known for soaring from and among skyscrapers and bridges and paved streets, not mountains and trees and fields and streams -- had a chance. He was the dark horse, the underdog, the disrespected falcon in this school so close to the sea and sky. In the southern tree was placed a graduate of the singing school, a chickenhawk who resembled the warhawk in many ways, who often sang songs about other singers of song, who otherwise sang about troubles with birds of the duller feather, about hatchlings pushed too early from the nest, about broken eggs, about the themes expected to be sung by birds from the singing school. The chickenhawk was well-liked on the island, but not well-loved, in part because he exuded too similar an attitude to the beloved warhawk who had nearly been his contemporary and yet who had never had the warhawk as a teacher and had never had a student sing as strongly as those from the school. In the western nest, they placed a blue heron. She had only taught fledgling singers so far in her career, but she had learned  from the warhawk and the dove and the jay and had learned to sing their songs well, though those who studied her songs often came away feeling as though she had learned her songs, that her songs were calculated reproductions rather than songs of her own, and many of the songs she sang included lines of melody so often sung that some songbirds refused to acknowledge that the western nest even held a bird at all. 

Among the current student songbirds there was much excited singing about the eagle, the falcon, the chickenhawk, and the heron. None seemed quite right to replace the warhawk, though, and some wondered if perhaps more pressure should not be placed on some of the more prominent birds to see if they would answer the call of service to the future of singing in the world, but the dove and the jay and the robin assured the students that these were the four and that over the next days the student songbirds would listen and discuss and perhaps even have a hand in selecting the warhawk’s replacement. The resident of the southern nest was asked to sing first. The students and former students who had flown to the island stood in such a way that left a wide circle in a clearing in the valley between sea and dark crags. On this morning, the chickenhawk swooped in and sang a song about the songs he had sung and singing in general. True to the rumors his singing resembled the warhawk’s. But it did not have the warhawk’s urgency, and everyone became uneasy when they considered the possibility of replacing the great warhawk with a chickenhawk whose songs often incorporated unintentional moments of squawking, something the warhawk used only sparingly if ever and always absolutely on purpose and to uncommon effect, a twisting of neck and breast that released a squawk enabling a zipper to appear on one’s chest, making it much easier to extract one’s beating heart for others to see and understand. And then when sun fell into the sea and the southern chickenhawk gathered with a handful of willing students on the beach and built a fire and then around it, fanning its flames, singing all the while with the student birds a song about the simple divinely provided talent to sing a song at all, as opposed to the cat or the rock, and the chickenhawk, drunk on singing about the simple joys of singing, entertained the students with stunt flying through the flames of the bonfire. Later, with his dulling feathers happily singed, smoking somewhat, his songs turned to the simple joys of love, his breast feathers obscenely puffed as he preened for the fairest-feathered ladybirds. None of which went over well when the story of his flying through the flames and his ghastly, adulatory overtures circulated among the students the next morning. 

As the chickenhawk flew home, the eagle from the northern school arrived singing an ironically important fanfare to his own arrival. The students who heard him coming flapped in appreciation and expectation of the northern eagles’ good humor. When time came for him to officially sing, the songs he sang were perfect impersonations, parodies, satires, fluidly shifting from voice to voice, offering generous reinterpretation of old song after old song so that his songs were like a meal prepared by a cook who perfected dishes then combined and supplemented each one till something familiar and new burst on one’s senses, and the students -- some of them at least -- inferred the lesson that one doesn’t need to always sing one sort of song, that the same voice can include various songs within it. Others, however -- the dove included -- didn’t appreciate the pastiche, the parody, the entertaining and at times entirely enlightening fun of the songs the northern eagle sang; some had been shocked by his unexpected application of sexual calls, graphic variations on tragic themes, inappropriate juxtapositions. There was no bonfire at night, the rumor going around that the northern eagle only accepted the invitation to audition to replace the great warhawk to create a stir where he was a respected instructor, that he only accepted the invitation to send a scare through the northern school and by doing so improve it. 

As this rumor flew from nest to nest through the night, the northern eagle returned to the north, and those on the island wondered who would ever be able to replace the warhawk: the chickenhawk provided a bathetic facsimile and the northern eagle shocked too many, perhaps even purposefully eliminated himself. These two older males of prey had been the ones the initial songs of excitement at the singing school were sung about, the ones who most believed had had the best chance to win, while the falcon and heron had no chance, it had at first been thought, and now it seemed that the falcon and heron might very well find themselves leading the most prestigious singing school in the world, a thought that sent the songs sung by the students to exciting pitches and soaring melodies wherein they wondered what might possibly happen next: the heron returned to the island the morning after the northern eagle left, she arrived without an announcement song, her former teachers greeted her warmly, the students noticed that the young heron still retained the posture and gestures of a student herself. She would not replace the warhawk, a mistake had been made or she was invited only to serve a purpose lower than an attempt to discover an apt replacement. The students sighed when they made their way with lazy flaps to the center of the valley where the heron was set to sing, and as she sang the song of her western heronhood, the students found themselves lulled to distraction if not quite sleep, and instead of listening to the easily engaging story of the heron from the west, the students found themselves staring at the jay who had fallen asleep, the robin who had tucked his beak into his breast, and the dove whose posture revealed the slow collapse of the spirit that had typically held her frame upright, her pert beak now nearly at rest against her delicate talons. The song the heron sung was a song herons had always sang, a song about fish and reeds and the history of herons. The song relied on the idea that all birds were somewhat interested in herons, especially those raised near water. But even those birds who relate to the heronsong are only somewhat interested in herons, not interested enough to sustain that interest when the song is sung so earnestly, so commonly, so without flourish or unexpected trill, especially so soon after the northern eagle had his way with the graceful yet stingy singing steps of the western blue heron, something even now that makes most in flight glide in an aerial collapse that matches a sinking of their spirit. At night, the blue heron sat with her teachers and sang about how they had helped her focus her song till it achieved a heronsong that all could understand and sing along with, and while she sang about this, the students flew in circles high above the islands, worried what would happen if the falcon failed to wow and the choice was between the chickenhawk and the heron. The students sang some of the most impassioned songs ever heard high above the island out of earshot of the dove, the jay, and the robin, and these impassioned songs made the singers think that all would be okay no matter which candidate were chosen to replace the warhawk, for their passion had energized their singing and they recognized this as a lesson, the best singers among them used their passion to achieve a singing that could never be bound by the soft spot in the valley between sea and dark crags. 

And then the falcon arrived, and oddly, he looked more like a penguin at first, his movements on his talons were awkward, everyone first saw him walking on his two feet, his wings at his sides, his white and black and red coloring seemingly slicked to his skin as though with oil. The falcon was the youngest candidate, younger even than the heron, nearly twice as young as the chickenhawk, and yet his stiff waddling walk on land made him look much older in a way––was it a setup? This falcon was known for his flight more than his song, an uncommon approach to singing, uncommon at least on the island. In the city, singing and flying had always been interdependent, especially because songs were drowned out by human noises below, jets and cars and steel hitting steel beneath the streets, and so over the years, as the city became louder, the songs of the birds there evolved into an expressions that did not directly signify anything other than what the viewer preferred to hear. But this urban flying seemed not to match the sight of this young city falcon standing so awkwardly before the singing school, all those energized to sing as they had never done before in reaction to the fear that the heron or chickenhawk would replace the warhawk, and so, seeing this waddly penguin of a falcon, what was there to do but become more worried at the prospect of the replacement -- worried, that is, until the falcon’s seemingly slicked at his side wings rose and they saw streamlined expanses of powerful, sinuous wings with which he hovered into flight, his unremarkable talons pulled into his body, and then he began to sing in classically pure tones as he rose higher, straight up, as though the sounds emitted from his body formed orbs on which he stood that elevated him till everyone below looked at this sight above, at this incantation, it seemed, and the falcon became who they had heard he was, a first-rate flier, hardly emitting a sound. The falcon’s flight described figure-eights, nines, sixes, every number imaginable, unaccountable, spirals, shoots, quick reversals, right angles, tumbles as though he’d been shot from the sky, bursts of speed unseen on the island even by other falcons, and what did those below hear as he did this? Their eyes created songs they did not sing as they watched the city falcon fly, but still the sense of it was similar to the sense they had when hearing songs or singing themselves, and then the falcon flew low, a foot at most overhead, buzzing them, and they could all hear that he indeed was singing, softly, but nevertheless singing the song he’d began when he’d risen from the ground. The tones now had become faster until they created a shifting rhythm when heard for a minute overhead, but which blended into clouds, so as the city falcon shot overhead it sounded as though his speed blurred his pure tones into both rhythm and sustained chords that trailed from his sound, that then returned as the falcon made another pass overheard, the last decaying note of this pass resolving into the first evolving note of his approach, and with the afternoon hour, the mist from the sea and the tropical sun angling toward the horizon, it seemed the falcon made his sounds visible in a sheet above them that billowed like a translucent ribbon that sounded unlike anything they had ever heard on the island or elsewhere. 

That evening, the falcon was visited by every student, flocks of them attended to the nest to once again see the falcon at rest and now he looked more like a penguin again, his eyes better suited to fit the face of a horse or cow than a falcon, and when the students asked him about his singing, he talked about his flying, and when they asked about his flying he talking about the past, present, and future of singing, and he talked in a way they understood, and as they flew off the students were excited about the past, present, and future of singing and flying and whatever else existed between and beyond. The falcon flew off the next morning and many students accompanied him all the way to the horizon only turning back when the island was almost out of sight. The dove, the jay, and the robin called all the students to the center of the soft spot in the valley between sea and dark crag and there the students of the singing school began to sing in favor of the falcon. Some emulated the falcon’s song and others buzzed across the crowd at great speed, all the while placing their support in favor of the falcon who flew unlike any other, who sang unlike any other, who inspired the students to think of their singing in ways they’d never considered before, for example, to think of the flight of their singing, how flight and song could come together to make something extraordinary seen. Of all the students, only one, a golden flicker, expressed doubts about the falcon, for she had studied singing with the falcon in the city and had thought his singing and soaring more important to him than teaching how to sing and soar. He was too interested in his own singing, he was testy, he had made several students cry, he had discounted the singing of students, saying they had no right singing if they continued singing as they had been singing, and all the while the golden flicker spoke like this about the falcon many of the students were reminded of the old warhawk, who had made many of them cry -- who had even made students cry for how he had treated their friends -- the old warhawk who had treated them as he thought they should be treated if they expected to take their singing seriously. Only a handful bothered to politely and diplomatically make the case against the heron, however, while not a word was said about the chickenhawk or the northern eagle. 

This is not really a story about the four prospective replacements of the warhawk or the student songbirds or the singing school. More so, it is a story about the dove, puffed and gray and unapproachable, world-renowned as the foremost practitioner of the ancient art of cooing. This dove never flew, some said she could not fly, and since she was older, everyone always swooped from their nest to the ground to hear her, and recently her cooing had been specially recognized the day before the warhawk died. Her coo was elegant, intelligible, beautiful, refined, and for many, it inspired a tremendous sense of peace and balance in the world. A tone of well-being that evoked almost a divine presence, the sense that the sound knew more than it could ever admit to telling––it was a sound that reverberated first in the brain then settled through the rest of the body––it was about stillness, tranquility, a sound originating from soft spot in the valley between sea and dark crags. The jay and the robin hardly ever sang now; they had sang and been recognized for their singing but their interest in singing had declined with every year at the singing school. Their interest in the replacement had not seemed great, though they had attended all singing sessions and along with the trustees of the singing school listened to the songs of praise sung by the students about the falcon. The trustees were not singers, they were humans who lived on the other side of the island, in the city. They enabled the school to function as though it ran itself, when really, without the trustees, all the students and teachers would have flown away. And so to decide who would replace the warhawk, the dove, the blue jay, the robin, and a handful of esteemed graduates and former teachers gathered to vote and pass their decision to the trustees. All voted for the falcon but one, who voted for the heron, and so it seemed the falcon had won! The visiting singers and even the robin and the jay seemed exited for a moment until the dove cooed as she never had before, a coo heard throughout the island, a coo that silenced the songs of students practicing their songs at sea. The dove cooed that singing was not about flying, that the students needed to sing before they worried about creating sensational effects that distracted from the tonal quality of song, that the falcon’s song was incomprehensible to most, that the students were excited only because it was different and difference once assimilated quickly becomes dull, and so, no, said the dove. If the vote stands, I will never sing again, I will leave the singing school, you will have to replace me, she said. The others realized what was happening, and after some discussion, they decided it was better to have the dove and the heron than the falcon and a question mark. When word got out to the students it seemed like the falcon had been assassinated and with it enthusiasm for the past, present, and future of singing, and when word was heard that the dove had threatened to leave the island if she had to serve with the falcon, the students considered schemes to protest but they never did anything other than wonder what might have been if the falcon had been allowed to sing and soar alongside the jay, the robin, and the cooing dove. 

The lesson the students learned was about standing for what one believes is right, even if everyone thinks differently; enthusiasm is not enough; what is new is not interesting for it will cease to be new; intolerance is not only a friend, but often the best bet; if opinions do not agree with one’s own, they are misguided and possibly dangerous—and songs can not be taught, ways of singing can not be taught, and true singers will sing whether hawk, eagle, heron, dove, or falcon leads the singing school in the valley between sea and dark crags on an island somewhere in the middle of an uncharted ocean within you.