TheBanyanTree: hope sings

[Julie Anna Teague]

Friday, February 10th: I woke up to the sound of birdsong. Not the disruptive
caw of an ever-present crow. Not the solitary sound of the single dove I heard a
week ago. But many mourning doves, cooing and calling and answering as I emerged
from sleep--a sound so unexpected it was more nearly a recollection, from some
past summer day, of birdsong in the morning, than the real thing. Funny how I
forget these things in the silence of winter mornings--birdsong, rainstorm, leaf
flutter. And how they take me by surprise again, filling me with gratefullness
and relief. "Ah, once again," I say to myself. And as a running private joke,
"Survived another one." And then driving down the road a day later, as if to
confirm that it was not an overactive imagination or merely the suggestion of a
hopeful heart, I have this evidence: a flock of black swallows, circling and
gathering on a small plot of grass between two gray streets and a gray building
and a gray sky. A hillside of purple crocus. Green tongues of daylily, jumping
the gun. 

Today is stunningly sunny and bright. There is a warm look about it, but outside
the glass, a bitter, biting wind.  I am inconsistantly dressed in thin pants,
sunglasses, and a down coat. The wind slaps me in the face as I make fast
strides across campus, nearly skipping every few feet to speed myself up and out
of the cutting cold.  But I have the sound of birdsong.  I have a flock of
swallows, seed catalogs, and some green shoots.  I still have firewood against
the cold outside, and these things against the seizing up of the soul.

Julie