medley raze a blue_jay glides above my head. she comes to rest on the top rail of the fence that borders my back yard, just a few feet from my face. she breaks down a walnut with her beak and sings a single word before taking her leave. i know that word. i've said it myself a time or twenty. all i can say right now is, "oh wow." i like to think i have my eyes open as wide as they'll go, but you forget how stunning birds are until you see one so close to home. they're these beautiful mistakes nature was generous enough to make before phasing out the gift of flight and nailing our feet to the ground. i think they're here to remind us what we were once, and what we could be again. on the other side of the house, a man in a bald black t-shirt and camouflage cargo shorts pushes his son or daughter in a stroller, working the handle with his left hand. in his right he holds something that looks like a bottle of aspirin. he shakes it from side to side to calm the shrouded child. a hundred beats per minute. right in the sweet spot. it's such a small, simple act of love. but the smile that creases his face tells me this gives him more joy than anything else he'll do all day. i don't need to see the child to know they're already drifting into a dream. i stand on my front_porch and listen until the steadfast swishing sound becomes one with the wind and we're all the same song. 220817 what's it to you? who go blather from