Do you suppose small birds mourn? That, as their wee ones start out as four bodies emerging wet from beige, palest turquoise, and brown speckled eggs, one mouth seeming to crave life from the get-go while the others curl around the deep hearth of nest, waiting to stretch toward light, their parents ready to feed, to nurture, do they begin instinctual hoping? Do you wonder if, as the nest dwindles to one, they search for the lost or keep a keener eye on the ever-open mouth of the one remaining? Do they take time to sing a lament from the bow of the fir for the ones that never flew? And when, one morning after a night of tending, warming, they return for first feed to discover the one gone, no mouth to fill, too soon to fledge, do they weep bird tears? Do they rend their feathers? I wonder. I wonder.
Grief Never Fails Me
Spring finally arrived and it has been so dang frenetic and my still winter-paced body has been in overwhelm. The season was a good three weeks later than last year, as evidenced by my camera roll, with cool mornings and cold rains and lots of mud lingering well past the “April Showers” phase. The greens, as if suddenly alert to the change, are verdant, vivacious, vivid, and a full thesaurus of vibrant adjectives. Then there are the blossoms, the birds and all the wildness of this burgeoning season in full glory. It is so alive. And it isn’t that I don’t appreciate walking in the sunrise light and not having headlight-glare driving in the early evening hours. But, as I noted recently to a friend, as this season of flowing is upon us, I have felt more like ebbing. Finding stillness in the eruption of Spring energy can be challenging. Perhaps I should contact my Aussie friends and go to the Southern Hemisphere for a few months. A recent unseasonable heatwave has compounded the urgency in the air as if proclaiming “Summer is already here!” I haven’t even come on board with Spring. Sigh.
Lesson From My Mentor, Grief: Sitting With Discomfort While Embracing Beauty
Tulips began erupting from their sleek oval bulbs in April. Long stems hugged by thick winged leaves, one flower per stem. Colors the pastel pink of tongues, the vibrant red of heartbeats, the cream of moonbeams, the yellow of lemon drops held in cupped hands. Tulips surpassing their daffodil bulbed relations with a flourish by month’s end. One completing their laborious cycle, having awakened in late winter with tips barely gracing the earth to now drooping in browned petaled demise, waiting to fall back into dormancy. The other, as their cycle nears completion, throws open their petals with wild abandon, tossing them to the ground one-by-one leaving the stem bewildered, naked for all to see. Daffodils, my heart flower, resonates with the steadfastness that is the root of me. And yet, in slowing my pace during this pandemic time, the allure of tulips is calling to the wild in me. A wild that keeps bobbing to the surface with greater frequency with each passing year.
