Promises of blue jays

I love opening my eyes and knowing it will be a good day.  On a day like this I can hear the promises of blue jays for the winter... and believe them

I know the day will be good

Or mostly good

When I open my eyes

And think

Oh a new day

I have plans

For this day

So I get up

Open the doors

Hear the geese honking

Getting ready to fly south.

They too have heard

It will be a harder winter

Than the last.

The flicker

Makes his flicker noises

As he loads up on bugs

On the dead branch

Of the ash.

The blue jay promises

I will stay here

In his raucous blue jay voice.

Oh a new day

I think

A new day

And promises of blue jays

For the winter.

Counting moments

These days I am considering my life as a child, remembering in my bones, remembering in my sinews.  As I watch blue jays in the back yard, I remember my first or second blue jay, a wonder of a bird.  There are wonders still to be unpacked from my past.  I return to counting my age in days.

I return to counting my age

The way every small child does.

I am

Fifty-nine and a third

Plus two days.

Each moment counts,

Doncha know,

Each moment counts.

I count mine.

Blue jays

I remembered blue jays as primarily grey-blue.  With their disappearance due to the West Nile virus, I had forgotten what stunning birds they really are: grey-blue, yes, but light blue too, with white and black.  Up close they offer much more contrast than I remember.  A pair landed in the backyard, picking seeds next to the garage bushes.  Are those a male and female? I asked my beloved.  To us they look the same, he said, but probably they can tell the difference.

We assumed they left

Down the West Nile… but no.

Or maybe they merely

Took a very long trip.

Same moon

It is important to note the common reference points, one place to another.  Here in Florida I found the moon and the blue jay.  I had forgotten the blue jay is here in the winter as well as living in the Midwest snows.  I remember the return of the blue jay after the West Nile virus decimation.  They make me smile with their raucous can*t miss it presence.  Blue jays are not passive birds.  The moon.... well... it is the moon.  It glows on the just and unjust and all of us caught in the middle.

The same moon

I know in Chicago

Shone through

The slats on the mini-blind

Last night:

Lined and bright

Moonlit stripes on my arm

Until my eyes

Finally closed.

I slept clear through

Time for church.

Last night

The very same moon

Shone full and clear

With stripes,

Reminded me

I have seen it

At home.

This morning at breakfast

The blue jay

Called and jeered

Just like

Every Illinois and Minnesota blue jay,

Hopped along the fence,

Told me

He Is every blue jay

I have ever known

And more.