Another Gray Day

The birds are out in numbers today, another gray morning. They scamper about as if at feeding, but what they are eating I cannot tell.

They seem to flee at my approach, constantly at a 10-foot radius from my gentle presence. Am I or they so unholy? What do they fear in me? What minds did God give these creatures that they fear me?

Somewhere above I begin to hear the wailing cries of an exodus of geese. I halt my steps and scan the featureless sky.

I spot the movement of the birds through the haze, and I wonder if anyone else has the sense to perceive them as well. A ‘V’ of unshapely phantoms crosses over the place where I stand. Another blurry cluster, and another, each of different number and organization. Swift black movements submerged in the fog above my head, barely visible. Gone.

Their departure reminds me of the sometimes desolation in my mind since you left, of the white blank that was once your photograph next to my bed.

The red brick road on which I walk is wide, lonely and I know where it goes. What I would pay to get back on that tour bus that travels through a foreign countryside, to watch the trees go by. To rest in other people’s homes. To be welcomed and to bring gifts. To make a new home in homelessness with whomever you are by my side.