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ATOP THE MAY POLE

Mr. Finch's children have returned. He brought them last Spring for toll house cookie crumbs on the camphor tree table, when they were just able to fly, pecking on spindly legs by my elbow. We became something of a family. I took a picture and sent it to Cornell University. He's called a Junco, Oregon. Because of their original northern habitat, they're also called snow birds.

The latter seems somewhat more poetic. In my book he shall remain Mr. Finch.

Our fence is the ground for excited greetings, short chirps, as I spread walnut pieces. I talk to them softly. Hello little birds, or Mr. Finch, or it seems all the same. Their reply, as usual, is somewhere in the key of E flat Major. They make no mention of yesterday's storm. The wind blowing Christmas trees and garbage cans down the street was stronger, Susan said, than anything felt here before. Something unusual.

It has rattled language in its crib.

Atop the May pole facing east, a lightning rod mocks the weather vane. Along a covered bridge the wooden boards are rattling, as beneath a herd of frightened cattle. Penetrating in horizontal rays, the early light shows an entertainment of bows and curtsies that rise in bluish flickers. Cones and crackles – Saint Elmo's Fire amidst stars shining through empty space, hunting for refuge under Sancho Panza's outlandish hat.

It might be a desert scene. But a covered bridge?

And next a swarm of fireflies, swirling on the cusp of aeons, that slip through grasping hands, filtering down to merge with empty minds.