White Clover

My boy sits among wild strawberries and clover,
brushes the leaf clusters curiously, plucks
white wildflowers and pops the blossoms
in his mouth, sucking what I can imagine
is sweetness bunnies crave. Morning
dew dampens his plump, strong legs that are beginning
to take him places without guidance, but never
without accompaniment. The breeze combs
his flaxen curls and the trefoil greens
deepen with each longer look of fascination.

Many say God is a Holy Trinity, three Persons
in One. The clover's thin petals form tunnels
to their centers; my child waves a complex flower
like a wand. Humbled, I wonder
how anyone could number the divine
People or Plants, Places or Possibilities,
or suppose the Creator is anything apart from
the Created, creating. Later, my son climbs
into my lap and falls quickly to sleep, sighs
in contended dreams, an earthy smell
on his breath, floral crown at his feet.

Symphonic Solitudes

"Love consists of this, that two solitudes protect and touch each other."
- Rainer Marie Rilke

We heard them before we saw them: two geese flying into the lake. They soared in from the south, silhouetted against the dawn; their trumpeting honks reverberated in the amphitheater of trees. Silenced by their arrival, my husband and I observed from a swinging bench by the water as they alighted with wings that beat the air like drums.

We thought at first there were others responding with throaty sirens, so deafening were their echoes. Soon it was clear the two were solitary, raucous companions. They swam and sang their haunting calls louder and louder. The rhythmic rounds swirled in crescendo, each honk a new verse that elevated the dissonant harmony before falling quiet in the trees. We studied their sleek movement; our spirits resonated with the symphony.

The geese took turns continuing the task of bleated conversation. With each pause, they bent lithe necks to chest and threw back their beaks to ladle down the cool water. Each dip, quick and untidy, caused spilling drops to glitter. Pale auroras of mist swirled over the ripples as the geese floated as ghostly creatures in the shadowed lake. Silent humans and acrobatic birds - near in liminal love, beautifully ephemeral as the light or mist or song - bore witness to wonder.

As suddenly as they arrived, their song shifted keys and, in lyrical synchronicity, they took to the air, mist unfurling as clouds in their wake. The song faded as our attention followed them across the lake, up to treetops, past the horizon. With thoughtless and heavy breath, we wrote in the air a wordless farewell of surprise and thanks.

Two wild birds drawing close can evoke holy terror in the heart of a lone human, but inspired mystical delight in a pair seeking the deeper nature of things. Being human can feel lonely, but two humans sharing space together transforms isolation into a warm practice of protection. Trusting that each other being seeks something the other cannot fulfill is a wisdom that sanctifies individual strife.

I have heard that sighting a pair of geese is a good omen. That the solitudes of our two companionships touched gently, like wings to water or entranced hand to hand, relays a message beyond language. It is the mystery of the realm we inhabit authentically in silence. It sings as the quickened heartbeat, the animated woods, the disturbed and enlightened water, the flight above what can be seen.

Becoming

I watch you notice the bird chirping on the neighbors' air conditioning box working to nest his children in the metal vents with sticks and thread. You gasp and point, press your cheek to mine, look with me to the warbler's perch. Eye to eye, we watch his messy but deliberate process. Suddenly, he takes flight.

The eye is an imperfect instrument made adequate by aeons of messy evolution from an underwater lens to one that translates light refracted through air. Our bodies have had to compensate with generations of mutation, making this end result make sense out of practical necessity. We marvel at its complexity and precision, though we could have mended its inefficiencies had we known where we'd end up. But we didn't. We had to make our way slowly to become a foreign lifeform, swimming and dragging ourselves to land with fingerless flippers out of our aqueous atmosphere, squinting in the hazy sunlight, assessing the risk of never going back.

This moment, your soft eyelashes rest on round cheeks pressed against my empty breasts. Your breathing, my heartbeat, this relationship with you outside of my body, reminds me of the messiness of birth. More blood and effort and pain than we would have planned had we known our heads would grow so large, our pelvises would narrow, our society would make it difficult to keep well the bond between mother and child. But here we are, our rhythms syncing, the heaviness a comfort, the birdsong an ideal lullaby.

The way you throw your head back to see the moon and stars as we walk at night looks like the beginning of a back flip, motion that defies the grounding physics of gravity. The moon feels like it could rest in a hand like an orb, but its orbit dictates our internal tides. We look up at the moon looking down on a planet it doesn't know houses humans. The way you look at me in delighted puzzlement at the distant lights in darkness is the start of a lifetime of questions.

Why only five fingers and toes, and no fewer? Why does the smell of your breath make me smile? Why feathers on birds, scales on fish, skin on humans? Why sex, or pain, or laughter? Why delight in observing life? Why death, instead of living forever?

Nothing would be the same if we'd known it was becoming. Nothing would mean anything without a history, but nothing happens for a reason except that it has to happen that way for the world to get where it is going.

Our eyes are the same as the bird's nest, brown and rich, empty for holding. Your wonderment is the Earth's bedtime story, telling us what could happen if we dreamed. The mystery of what we will become is foretold in the bird's flight, is written in blood, is promised in song.