There were birds today. I hear them as I come in up the back step, the mail in hand. I stand and listen and I look for them in trees, in limbs, in light. Chickering and chattering, all invisible. I have missed them. I didn’t know I had missed them until I heard them. Silence is clever that way.
Icicles drip. Limbs of the spruce tree shake winter and it shatters all down the walk, glass confetti. Sparrows in trees gossip spring but I know it’s only rumor, the skates piled sharp at the door, and I ask at the table, while they stir the bowls, why do I never hear the birds in winter?
Does the wind steal the song?
Their boots tromp atop the walls of their snow fort. A belly slides through the fort door. Her hair glitters wet with the melting diamonds. They lick icicles, January popsicles. All of which only seems to confirm news on the sparrow wire of warmer rays and they chorus cheer.
But I don’t know where the sparrows perch come late, when winter whips around the house in the dark. When the fingers come uncertain to the letter keys, when children are in bed and the house is still, ice cracking now at the pane, and that cursor flashes on the screen, “sing, sing.” I flit to the higher limbs, shy, silent, invisible.
Does the wind steal the song?
Later, when I lie waiting for sleep, I hear coyotes yip-singing at the edge of the woods, giving their song to the wind, and I hear it, all winter in moonlight.
Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark. ~Tagore
Photos: looking for light in the dark here
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