The sky is weeping convulsively over the central states as I write, and the weeping cherry in the backyard is blooming. Actually, only the tree’s skirt of drooping branches blooms. Perhaps because of a grafting issue, it also grows a crown of upward branches, which bear only leaf buds, making the tree appear half dressed.  

I’ve got pages in my notebook filled, but I’ve struggled to get my ideas to stick together enough to post here these past few months. Worldwide turmoil and tragedy: it has been a deluge. Floodwaters rise. I cling to daily routine to not be swept downriver into a sea of deep melancholy.

To you who give your time to read what I write, I want to send an encouraging message. But I’ve been banging against the limits of my prowess as a writer (and as a human), struggling to offer anything—and honest silence has seemed better than half-hearted platitudes.

But then there’s this.

To clear some space on my shelves, I inventoried books I’d already read, hoping to rehome the tomes. A colleague read my list and inferred that I’d enjoy Of Time and Turtles by Sy Montgomery, which she passed on to me. I was touched by her thoughtfulness, and I felt heartened by this true story of animal rehabbers driven by love of our carapaced cousins. 

In the book, I encountered “Good Bones,” a poem by Maggie Smith:

"...For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful."

We can, right?

In winter, I saw bluebirds visiting my sister’s neighboring yard. Hoping to attract these gorgeous, symbolic birds to my own yard, I hung a suet feeder from the weeping cherry. It didn’t attract bluebirds, but it did draw a mockingbird couple, who claimed it as their exclusive domain. I enjoy watching them pinwheeling their wings as they snag a bite. I also enjoy watching these territorial songsters chase off house sparrows, which are invasive enemies of bluebirds. Hovering, backlit by pink blossoms, the drab mockingbirds flash their wing patches, bolts of tenacious hope.