The Wings I Cannot See

Listen to the hummingbird
Whose wings you cannot see
Listen to the hummingbird
Don't listen to me

Listen to the butterfly
Whose days but number three
Listen to the butterfly
Don't listen to me

Listen to the mind of G-d
Which doesn't need to be
Listen to the mind of G-d
Don't listen to me

Listen to the hummingbird
Whose wings you cannot see
Listen to the hummingbird
Don't listen to me

***********

Dear Kate,

Monday to me is always strange.

Here I am gathering myself to plunge into another week of "good work," using these hands, to write, to type, my mouth to speak, both not very good.  Who am I to be of any good to anything, anyone?

Every Sunday I would sit around the dinner table at the same spot waiting to be served by my family and I wouldn't move much by then, Sunday night.  I would take a little sip of alcohol that my sister-in-law would serve for pleasure, but to me for calming, for talking less, for talking more frivolously, drinking in the ridiculousness of my many words in the weekend past, a bittersweet cup, the Monday waves slowly tiding to my shore.

Yesterday was a good day.  Felt more like summer, finally, in Vancouver, everything just right.  I walked much, sat in front of a long-term care home for a long moment, right outside the day-program area where I volunteered last year for about two seasons, witnessed changes.  A division of one glass door, inside and outside, I and You, past and present, sickness and health, living and dying, I almost touched it but was afraid to.  With this pandemic it'll never be the same.  I used to think my friends were locked in their world.  I am locked out.  That door I touched many times, always with a smile on me, to greet my friends coming off HandyDART, about the only times in my life I smiled for real.  Not knowing I was smiling, that was.  Outside Safeway shortly after I met a friend from the program but I walked away from him: for privacy reason I needed to pretend to have never cared for him.  That pained me a great deal.

If there is a God I am not broken enough to know Him yet.

Yours, Alex