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.
Home for Offer? (48)
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In a Hurry (47)
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.
Waiting (46)
My book manuscript sits on the stool, clean new printout, spiral bound. Now and then I pick it up, rub the clear plastic cover with one hand the way I used to stroke my cats. I cradle it against my chest with both arms, rocking side to side. I am in love with its fresh newness. I am in love with its story. I am in love with its existence after all these years. I am eager to make my final pass or two through its pages. But I am not doing it. I think that’s okay. I trust I’ll pick it up at the right time. I wonder if I’m avoiding, resisting, afraid to finish. And if I am, is it because I don’t want it to be over? Because I don’t want to have to grieve? Or is it because I am afraid of what comes next? Maybe all of it is true. But I am comforted to see it waiting for me on the stool. That feels like a good sign. “Soon,” I murmur. “Soon.”
Moral Quandary (45)
Home from a trip, evidence of visitors in my courtyard. First sight through the gate, swinging open, two big bags of bird seed, one big bag of Meyer lemons. My friend Bob, kind and generous. I phone. “My birthday isn’t until April,” I tell him. Teasing, trying to be witty. Grateful. The other visitor is loved, too, but the evidence less welcome. Feathers carpet the cement. A whole mourning dove, at least. My hawk was here, successful, maybe more than once. I grieve for who died. But I can’t be sorry the hawk didn’t go hungry. It lingers in me when he visits again. I shouldn’t want him here. But he is exquisite. There are fewer white crowned sparrows, fewer house finch since I’ve been home again. Little by little it sinks in, why they are scarce. But how can I wish the hawk away? I say metta instead. May my little ones be safe. May my hawk fill his belly somewhere else.
Resting Hawk (44)
The young Cooper’s hawk is perched on the rim of my chartreuse pot, the one I broke when I moved the fig tree with the dolly. I buried it partway in the dirt, and lush oregano sheltered in its arc until the desert summer ended it. I guess he is a juvenile because he seems smaller, fresher and more twitchy somehow. And because he hides inside the bougainvillea, hoping to catch a sparrow. Yesterday he swooped across the courtyard and dove straight into the thorny branches. I think his parents have “given” this young one my yard with all its feeders so he’ll have more chance to practice. Today he seems less anxious. His head is not darting around as often as before. He keeps looking around, but his movements are slower, as if he is a little more relaxed. Just as I think this, I watch him slowly raise his right leg and tuck it under him, poofing out the white fluff at the base of his torso. I read about this just two weeks ago in H Is for Hawk, this resting pose. Seeing that leg slowly disappear thrills me. There is the blending of observation and learning, watching him do something I’ve read to be true, but it’s more than that. I think it may be the idea that he feels safe enough to rest right now, poised on one leg in the corner of my courtyard. And having this exquisite, young, eager bird at ease in my home awakes a tenderness in me, and a kind of longing. I want to run a finger across one bumpy yellow foot, brush the back of my hand across his white and brown-streaked breast. I yearn to be his friend.
Blessings (43)
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.
New Year Love (42)
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.
No Holds Barred 