Photos by Keith R. Good, who attracts and cares for our birds
IF YOU FEED THEM, THEY WILL COME
Aging comes with what seems almost an expectation: Bird beguilement. But my own love of birds began in junior high on Audubon Lane, where pheasants favored our backyard. And though those days have long passed, I can still enjoy the crimson male cardinal singing to his autumn-color lifelong partner. Our bluejays, if not for being common, would be coveted. I’m captivated by the bold ladderback and bright red splash on the red belly woodpecker. The soft sorrowing song of mourning doves does not sadden me in the least. It makes me smile. I giggle at the quirky little honk of the nuthatch as he darts up and down our trees. I find the cheerful little black-capped chickadee entirely enchanting. Goldfinches, bright as lemons, titter as they sail the air as though on waves. When we hear the intricate trill of tiny wrens, we know spring has entered. Orange orioles take our breath away with their arrival. And, of course, the minute emerald body and ruby throat of the hummer is electrifying. These and countless more captivate and delight us. They make our home, home.
Doing what we can to attract the vocalists that color our yard.
It’s dark. I see the lit porchlight across the street. A glow shines from inside the home. For several years, there were no lights. It seemed no one lived there, but I knew better. The house used to be graced with a family. Then, only the man remained. He seldom came and went. When darkness fell, the house disappeared.
There’s something about how the light warms the snow, and how love warms the house.
She’s lived with me twenty-four years now. She loves me. She appreciates how cheerful I am, no matter what is happening in her life. Even those who visit us feel my sunny spirit. No matter her day, I know how to make her relax.
Her gait has slowed more than she likely realizes. I hear and feel her shuffle across my hardwood floors. Sometimes she seems to catch herself, and picks up her feet a while. The shuffle returns. It always returns.
More and more, I hear
pauses
as she searchers for a lost word. She often discovers the first letter, but can’t retrieve the remainder. Then sometimes I’ll hear, “All gone.” Just like her mother used to say.
My post stands at the bottom of the steps leading to the basement. It bears my weight, and the weight of her worry. Might she or someone she loves fall and hit their head on my post? What are the chances of survival?
I hear her and her husband as they contemplate their future with me. Perhaps make my guest bedroom a half-bath and laundry — eliminate the need for stairs. But it’s a part of me she admires just as I am.
She’s lived with me twenty-four years now, and hopes for twenty-four more. Maybe her husband and I can make that happen. I know he’d be on board with it. She and I are a good team, making him more cheerful and relaxed, too.
My son and I sit together with his little cat family in his humble Cleveland apartment. He grabs his book of Hubble Telescope photos. He is fascinated with the universe and knows a great deal more about it than I do. He turns page after page, oohing and ahh’ing over the astounding beauty. Immensity. Luminosity. Each stunning photo compels him to share with me what he knows, and launches him to the next. I am enjoying hearing the excitement in his swelling voice as we explore multiple moons and distant galaxies.
Then, the Milky Way. His eyes grow tender. Voice, soft. “And this? This is home.”
Home Is The state Of my heart: Heart-shaped Ohio. “Ohio, The Heart of It All,” Is more than its slogan, to me. It’s a certainty Born of dappled sunlight, porch swing swishes, marching bands, sure love, and lingering laughter.
In the midst of war (and there is always a war) lies grim misjudging. Fear of difference. Insatiable greed for land. Resolute loathing. Dire false impressions. Grave miscommunications.
And a common moon.
And beneath that moon, in God’s perfect alignment, is home to us all. We’ve food and water (if only we’d gladly share), great plains and mountains, celebrated seas with unfathomably large communal mammals. With microscopic yet astoundingly complex sentient beings. Sands God has numbered stay in place as our home spins, not spilling a drop of the vast waters that both adorn and provide, beautify and quench.
And though we do not tend to her needs (let alone the needs of “others”), God gave us this home brilliantly placed beneath the moon of His choosing, populated with children He chooses to love. (There are no “others.”}
Never Have I Ever is a party game, where one says, “Never have I ever ___.” (fill in the blank) Those who have actually done that thing lose a point. Out of points? Out of game.
I’ll go first. Never have I ever seen early-voting lines, let alone those that extend for blocks, for days.
Now, how many of you are still in the game?
Truth is, it’s not a game. The stakes are high. The views, dissimilar.
What do you see in the distance? Hope? Fear? A kinder country? Loss of freedoms? Peace? Chaos?
Don’t answer that. Because, you know, never have I ever witnessed a greater loss of kindness and respect in discussions.
But, there is a vanishing point where the look-back perspectives align. Then we will see, and smile at the vanity of it all.
In the greater distance, I see celestial shores. No lines needed. We will know for the first time what it actually feels like to be united. To have no doubts in our King’s kindness, love, and justice. We will know for the first time what it actually feels like to be equal children of the Living God. To be home.
Never have I ever longed more deeply for a non-foreign Shore.
Your playful thank yous Your throw-your-head-back laughter Your joy in Jesus
❤
Bernie, it was a pleasure knowing you all these years. You taught so many of us how to be appreciative of every little thing, and that our joy is wholly in Jesus. My heart sings for you, knowing you are now with Him … freed from the body that trapped you.
As August slips into the back side,
and daylight is squeezed
into fewer hours,
I miss the distant sound
of drum cadence,
bringing in a new season.
In just a couple weeks,
Dad and I would have had
our decades-long ritual
of gathering in front of the T.V.
and saying (as though it is a surprise),
“Can you believe it is already
the first game of the season?
Didn’t the season just end?”
It didn’t matter whose home we
were in,
until it did.
Those final years, he became too frail,
and it became harder,
and then impossible,
to get Mom out the door.
So we would haul food to their place,
and hope Dad could stay awake
and out of the bathroom
for most of the game.
We hoped he could enjoy it
a fraction of what he used to.
The lamp that was part of each home
Mom and Dad called theirs
now lights my front window
as I write poems
about football
and marching bands
and drum cadence
and Mom
and Dad.
Because poems
and their light
are all that remain.
pictured words 