Flyers, Migration and May-Days

Sunday morning ease. James Taylor croons about hay tucked away in the barn. I'm cooking breakfast at the stove, occasionally glancing out the window to watch snow covering itself with affluent quietness. The music opens wide spaces for my hips and shoulders to sway. These are grateful, humbling days.

Kyle turns 50, so I make him a playlist of the eras we have tumbled through together. We played cards and games with the kids until 3 a.m., laughing, dancing and taking in a few impromptu saxophone duets on the living room stage. What exactly has been forfeited to end up here? The answer used to matter, maybe even more than the question. There is a peace now, but it comes with the acknowledgement that I have walked over that which would not lie down.

Goldenrod, thistle, milkweed all returns.

There is a poem that goes like this:

Advice For Those
Facing The Coming Flood (T. McGrath)

Swimming won't help.
Drown.

Or learn to walk on water.

I have been thinking of getting a tattoo and it will have something to do with the Cosmos. That poem may be talking about some kind of flood but to me, it is flaming with the unstoppable Love, which is also the Cosmos, which is also Us.

Another heron flies over as I walk in the early morning dark. It is below freezing which makes me wonder why he hasn't migrated. I don't always get to know the answer, and that is now okay.

Icarus comes to his faculties mid-flight and cries out: Take me now or May-Day May-Day. Both options leave him drowning. What if the myth was rewritten to say that Icarus, in the face of all consuming, cosmic Love, learned how to walk on water? I like that one best; tell it again.