Sunday bird walk near my mom’s
A handful of us stop to watch a scrub jay in the bare branches of a tree
Marvel over his unusual silence, his stillness
Maybe he is meditating, someone says
Yes, I say, maybe he’s a Buddhist
People laugh
I savor the miracle of easy camaraderie.
Walking in the road with a basket in my arms, I hear my first mockingbird
Beige breast in sunlight, singing from the top of a tree
Below him in the bare branches, an old, messy nest of twigs makes me wonder.
So swift the cloud’s shadow moving on my mountain
A dinosaur lowering her huge head to the ground
Hungry for scrub brush after the rain.
I stand at the kitchen sink washing and cutting vegetables for soup. It is late dusk. I work in a small circle of light from the stove. I smell garlic, dandelion greens, leeks, green onions, olive oil. “You can close your eyes,” James Taylor sings. “It’s all right.” A white crowned sparrow’s melodic call comes through the open window, pure, piercing. A fullness wells up in me, that blend of sweetness and sadness, this fleeting life. I slice mushrooms with slow, even strokes of the knife, tears in my eyes.
My day off, I eat soup in bed, devour H Is for Hawk
Open windows, goldfinch sparrow house finch voices loud, happy
Together we savor this still-young year.
Big waning daylight moon
Full heart greeting
my mother’s tree glistens in the window.
At night 120 miles away my solar Christmas lights
glow and arc in the bougainvillea
silent and dear without me.
No Holds Barred 