Thoughts from a Thinking Girl

Slowly, slowly I wash our last dishes
allow the too-warm water to
redden my hands to just the right amount of pain
so I will remember
that this is what it took
to release the hardened remnants
from the places
I used to feed on you.

 
I watch as
a banditry of black-capped chickadees
a host of house sparrows
a chorus of drab pacific wrens
and a lone scout pair of Steller’s jay
infiltrate the lush canopy that belongs more now to the neighbors
flicker and flit at the feeder
hanging from the winter-bare and knobby trunk
this side of the fence
a choreography
of hops and flutters
clicks and tsks
ticking along to an undetectable avian metronome
they perch and alight
poke beneath the moist blanket of fallen leaves
you wouldn’t rake.

 
And so it is, on New Year’s Eve
the closing of one year
opens the next
and I, who should have been alone,
am held aloft
by winged visitors
who needed the opening of your leaving
to return
find me again
delight me
call me out to the feeder
on a cold December morn
call me out of mourning
buzz and nudge me
to dance lightly
to the undeterred metronome
that still beats and swells
waiting for me to poke under the frosted leaf cover
find the little stash of seeds
nourishment
to last the rest of the winter.

 
One cannot dance and mourn.
So I will dance.