This Moment - May 21 7:34 A.M.

A magpie is voicing its discontent in long syllables. The view from my window is varying hues of fertile green. My dog is on the bed growling at school children walking past our house to the bus stop. My diminutive protector. He looks to me for approval, then lays his head on his paws and offers a final growl signalling danger has passed. The bright orange bus stops and the queue of children dutifully enter. I am working from home today, nursing a radiating pain in my jaw, a by product of jaw clenching. The rain has spent itself, yet a bowery of gray clouds hang overhead. The magpie has taken its complaints elsewhere, and a dove has taken up with its own litany of softly modulated sorrows. My other dog is barking its jaws weary. I will bring her in and instruct her to lay quietly by the fire while the smaller dog insinuates his nose into her fur. Cars are suddenly barreling up and down the street, their sibilant sound of wheels on wet asphalt the music of early morning. A pheasant shouts his arrival, and then silence, save for the steady rhythm of wheels turning. Birds join the composition at intervals as if instructed by a maestro: a chorus of birds is the swell of violins, a duo of birdsong is the sudden short bursts of horns, and a solitary voice imitates the timpani roll of drums. This morning, I am privy to a symphony in three movements.