Songstress, encyclopedic, in the pine treetop; she doesn’t know a single song, yet she recites them all.

A hard rain came in, slanted, and the pine tree where the mockingbird sang dripped fat raindrops, and I fell in love. I opened my apartment door to let in the damp light and the song. The winds blew waves one way this morning and another this afternoon. I brought home artifacts I don’t understand, and that’s okay. Sometimes you don’t hafta understand. It just is.

I read and read and read today, but my eyes kept looking at the tab that said “Edit–Saving A Life.”  I wrote my morning pages in dim light, took care of my home, edited a few words and phrases, but this piece is in no way ready or done. It’s all just socks and sweaters  hanging on the line, not a fine outfit tailored to my body, to my time. I’ve had a lot of input recently, and I question the output. I question everything these days but the mockingbird does not.  I spy a nest on a branch and wonder whose it is. I wonder who will take care of G, the once-neighbor, the now-outcast because he dealt and does drugs, kicked out of his home, the one who needs the most help I will not approach because from experience, if I do, he will never be gone.  And everyone knows it. So we treat him like leper for fear of disrupting our normal fairly-happy selves. I am torn. What does that say about me and my so-called faith?  And us. We are wired for survival. Comfort and pleasure comes later. When did pleasure become more powerful than survival–or is it equal?  The pleasure of warm food at the end of the day, cold water on a parched tongue after a dusty hike?  Why is the exchange of thoughts, ideas, hypotheses as satisfying as a warm meal at days end? How long will I remember the mockingbird’s song, the view from that mountain, anything at all? Where do I keep the memory and the curiousity and need to share her body in the tree?  I don’t know.

And that’s okay.