The Sound of Unfurling

May Moments

Under the sun, tulips straightening out petals, cats kneading paws, birds cooing to find mates, and my eyelids drape like blankets, keeping my inner vision warm and fuzzy – light gently leaking in through edges, colors transforming. I find myself peeking between the moments, listening for the invisible world. The birds are usually the first to come to my aide, their sweet sounds seeming to stretch the periphery of my awareness. I feel the breath of a steadied bloom in the air, a slowing and settling into the heart of spring. 

A new black squirrel is trying out the forgotten nest built many years ago in our living room window. The original builder, after two litters with us, seems to have largely moved on. It’s nice to see the space inhabited now. I’m enheartened by the trembling, shuffling, and rearranging body on the other side of the pane of glass. When the little body comes to rest, wrapped in the comforter of its tail, it sends a signal to my bigger human body: hold to the breath of life and let go. I recall the abandon of many moments, and somehow there I feel a homecoming – a return to the bareness of life, flush and blushing in the rain and sun.

I have learned that invisible threads not only weave, their fabrics also layer, and wrapped in those layers, between the moments, I let spring chaos arouse. A riot has lit the fire, turning winter’s ice into the steams of desire – desire rides the breath, re-organizing my body, braiding different sounds through pattern, into life’s spring celebration.

Maybe the squirrel in my window is the return of one of those tiny bodies born here years ago. Maybe our window is a never-forgotten childhood home. Under the fugue of Spring sun, behind my eyelids, a tear or two, condensed from spring steam, remembering a primordial sea on earth, their original birthplace, finally find a way back home – to their never-forgotten childhood home.