A red cardinal flew from one
tree to the next, higher up, a
shot of light across my view.

Rumbles of thunder dot the
moments on this sticky summer’s
day—even the rain drops sweat.

Bird calls break through to my
ear, rippling echoes across the
sky. Light clouds to the south
and dark behind signal mutable
tones this day.

Around twilight, a female cardinal
is chirping away in our tree—grayish
red hues adorn her feathers, not so
bold and bright as the male—she sings
urgently, perhaps calling her mate to
the tree so full of berries. Or perhaps
her call, so high and insistent, is to all
around her, presently perched alight.

A red streak of flight, our
cardinal friends it seems are
here for the late fall and ever
comforting, the onset of winter;
they grace us with their light.

Imagine a male cardinal in the
deep white snow—think of a seed
in the cardinal’s beak as he stands
softly atop the surface. And just now he’s
aloft, leaving fragile imprints on the snow.

Deep mid-winter—iced in—the grass
lives dormant beneath this locked-in
reservoir of being we call earth. Following
Shanti uphill in the snow, late afternoon
sun ahead, a red male swoops before me,
and again later that week on my skis,
a female rises and dips through the trees
up ahead and maybe, I think, what nature
teaches is grace in the flowing river of
time.