Conversation with Socrates Sometimes he would walk between the small school where he taught and the bridge over the Styx River— stand under a tree, watch the river flow and wonder why he walked down. There was never a tangible reason but it troubled him that there might be.   Bird noises distracted him because he couldn’t see the birds— whipbirds, black cockatoos, water-hens among ferns, rosellas and king parrots whose fragile bell-notes he thought didn’t belong in the shadows.   The sound of water found his ears and its jagged path found its way into his heart—that secret of…