I put out the fresh birdseed, and the blue bird arrives to feast. It’s a day I want to remember: I’m grading essays at the kitchen table with coffee mug full and candles lit. Children rake leaves into a pile in front of the big oak whose trunk separates into a perfect platform for jumping off.
I hear laughter and the brittle crunch of leaves.
Neighbors wave and then visit to discuss these leaves that now line the streets in huge piles. Other neighbors come with a coffee delivery in hand because they had too much and wanted to share.
So here I am in my neighborhood where neighbors talk and share, children jump into leaf piles, and the bird outside the kitchen window enjoys a bounty despite the bare landscape.
It looks empty out there with the expanse of dark sky and bare branches, but here, we know a bounty of family and friendship and ordinary work. And I love that this bird feeds upside down. Any way you face, a bounty.
