Return of the Honey Bird: Tears for the Beloved Country

There is a bird in South Africa called the Honey Bird. It likes to gorge itself on beehives, but dislikes being stung in the process. So it calls out to man with a compelling note, and flies from tree to tree leading him toward a hive. When man has chased the bees away and taken all the comb he wants, the Honey Bird swoops down and feasts on the remainder.

As a child in Africa, I was summoned by a Honey Bird of sorts, and I followed it eagerly; but none of the hot dark hives it sought had any appeal for me. I craved more sophisticated sweets, available only in the northern hemisphere— at gourmet stores which also, no doubt, purveyed the milk of Paradise. The desperate Bird was forced to flap farther and farther afield—across the Equator, through Europe, west over the Atlantic. It was twenty years before we finally reached Manhattan, and 12 more before we could afford carte blanche at Bloomingdale’s. Now, satiated, my tired Bird wishes to go home. I visit the South African Airways counter at JFK and buy two tickets to Johannesburg—one single, one return. Within 24 hours the Honey Bird has been set free in his native air. As his happy squawks fade away, I find myself standing alone in the city of my earliest memories.

EM

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Edmund Morris

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There is a bird in South Africa called the Honey Bird. It likes to gorge itself on beehives, but dislikes being stung in the process. So it calls out to man with a compelling note, and flies from tree to tree leading him toward a hive. When man has chased the bees away and taken all the comb he wants, the Honey Bird swoops down and feasts on the remainder.

As a child in Africa, I was summoned by a Honey Bird of sorts, and I followed it eagerly; but none of the hot dark hives it sought had any appeal for me. I craved more sophisticated sweets, available only in the northern hemisphere— at gourmet stores which also, no doubt, purveyed the milk of Paradise. The desperate Bird was forced to flap farther and farther afield—across the Equator, through Europe, west over the Atlantic. It was twenty years before we finally reached Manhattan, and 12 more before we could afford carte blanche at Bloomingdale’s. Now, satiated, my tired Bird wishes to go home. I visit the South African Airways counter at JFK and buy two tickets to Johannesburg—one single, one return. Within 24 hours the Honey Bird has been set free in his native air. As his happy squawks fade away, I find myself standing alone in the city of my earliest memories.