I'll be the first to claim that my mind is very often "here and there." By that I mean I am wracked with ponderings of due bills, client projects, keeping my family fed and house standing, and where our family will next eat out and where. All of this has its rightful place following my morning prayer and scripture reading, but it many times sneaks its way into the spiritual boundary that I thought I had rigidly set. There is one aspect of "spiritual", however, that cares and nuisances don't invade, and that is my early AM precious moments loading the tiny bird feeder at the corner of our yard. When I rise, get dressed, and prepare fresh water for the tiny birdbath that sits at ground level, and fill my palms with bread and seed for sparrows and other bird species, my mind is in no other place or spot than the currently leave-barren forsythia bush. Sometimes the many birds beat me there, chirping away in anticipation while I still slumber. Friday was one of those days, their song waking me at 7:35 AM and encouraging my descent to the kitchen and meal time. After I feed them, I sometimes pause for a minute or two and watch them attack the feeder, or take a drink and splash into the fresh water that now sits in their white bowl at the end of the fence. And what a difference compared to last week, when their "bath" had frozen over quite a few times, and I had to break the ice or provide warmer water that would not freeze. I'll also, during a period at my basement writer's desk, open the window and watch the birds at meal on my front lawn, not just noticing their manner of eating, but also wondering at how their tiny bodies stay moving. I consider the small size of their beating hearts, and most of all think of how they must depend on me. After an afternoon replenishment at around noontime Friday, I recalled something in a nearby bush that has been a "neighbor" to the sparrows for a few years: a 4" ceramic cardinal. A few years back, when I was cleaning out a box of "junk" in anxious fashion -- translated, I wanted to get it done and done quickly -- something fell from the box and crashed. The base of the statue was demolished, but the top, the red cardinal with wings spread, prepared for soaring, was miraculously intact. My wife Lucille was not pleased with what transpired, but was agreeable to my suggestion that the lifeless, beautiful piece, sans its footing, "find a new home" amid life, the red coated bird anchored properly and colorfully within a sea of green leaves. This morning, Saturday, empty branches supported it, its color even more noticeable. Prior to the Saturday sunshine, I once again performed my duties, and as I watched for a few moments from our deck, a bright red cardinal -- a living, breathing one who is my Guardian Angel -- flew down from a nearby tree, whizzed past my head, and joined the many sparrows for breakfast.
The birds hopped from branch to branch, joy filled. Steve
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Steve Sears is a New Jersey based freelance writer
Archives
February 2024
Categories |