Tiny chirps let us know that the eggs in the nest above our light fixture have hatched,
and so this year, having failed yet again to prevent her nesting there,
we re-arrange our tiny porch to better accommodate feeding & flight,
which is to say: poop;
while eagerly awaiting the sight of little heads popping up from her moss wrapped nest.
She comes every year.
Last June Casey saw each one of her chicks take flight.
She’s been my steady companion this cold spring–flying out each time I arrive home or depart,
and then as the weather warmed, flying back and forth to the nest as I watched from the kitchen, fixing meals for my family, while she fed hers.
Last week I introduced her to a friend.
We’re all Mamas after all.
But then a day went by, and I realized I hadn’t seen her, and then another, and I was almost certain I hadn’t, so this morning, I asked Casey to check.
Sto. Cristo Chapel Bgy. Sto. Cristo, San Isidro, Nueva Ecija, Phil.
My husband and I lounge under the covers as a jeweled sun sparkles through the trees on its way to our sky.
When the wind blows, the forest sways, dispatching flashes of gold onto our bodies, offering a perfect sermon for a Sunday morning.
Easter 2015, A.D.
The baskets are waiting. The eggs dyed. The reservations for brunch confirmed.
Last night we watched Chocolat with Lake Champlain 5 Star Chocolate Bars, and then listened to bits and pieces of the soundtrack from Godspell, centering on the score for the Crucifixion scene.
Most memorable, however, was the moment I pulled out 4 plates (of my Nana’s china) instead of 3, because our oldest was home.
Last Supper.
He had surprised us, downtown, the night before, when we were doing what I love best–floating from place to place, bumping into something sweet–which is particularly potent on a spring evening at Gallery Walk in Brattleboro.
Good Friday.
My youngest and I had just finished our monthly stroll through the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center–one of our favorite stops through the years–where we always take time to visit the kids room to make some art of our own.
It was inside the River Garden, however, where the family first came together, as a whole, attracted by the sounds of horns, played by the stunning Brattleboro High School Jazz Band.
During a particularly poignant interlude–when my husband’s hand clasped mine, and geese flew over the river, and spring stirred inside me–I felt something I’d never felt before:
Resentment.
Toward new life.
In that moment, I knew the seasons were indifferent.
That spring would come, whether I welcomed it, or celebrated it, or–worse yet–
whether I was here for it.
Perhaps it was my age, 51, ripening past peak, or the long white winter spilling into April, or that a loved one’s life was on the line; but suddenly—the young girls in bloom, the birds return, and the color green–represented something beyond–me.
Just like winter, I would pass, and the giddy world would go on resurrecting… without me.
I had been writing incessantly for over a week since the shooting at the Co-op, and with my latest post, I felt that I might be finished. Instead, I found my anguish stirred rather than soothed by last night’s performance, particularly when the poetry of the Romanian poet Eminescu was read.
Unto the Star
‘Tis such a long way to the star Rising above our shore It took its light to come so far Thousands of years and more.
It may have long died on its way Into the distant blue And only now appears its ray To shine for us as true.
We see its icon slowly rise And climb the canopy; It lived when still unknown to eyes, We see what ceased to be.
And so it is when yearning love Dies into depth of night: Extinct its flame, still glows above And haunts us with its light.
~Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889)/translated by Adrian Sahlean
This Vermont Life 