This Moment: 8:20 A.M. April 14,2012

The sky is making threats this morning . I am hoping for a day of the silent treatment watching the vast grey body as it sulks overhead. I am in no mood for another day filled with a torrent of tears. Birds are trilling the morning awake, layering the silence with a sweetly discordant composition. The flower beds have been cleared of detritus, their dark soil is moist and fertile. I am impatient to begin planting even though the season of frost has a month left to it's tenure. The view through my bedroom French doors is a large square of rich, lustful green, interspersed with delicate blush pink and white fruit blossoms. Cars and trucks rush past my window. A woman grasps the wheel with both hands, her gaze fixed on the road before her. This morning the cars and their drivers appear like children behind toy cars at an amusement park. The old dog's breathing is labored. She is a slight s-shape curled on her floor pillow. I have had her, or her me, for close to seventeen years. I do not care to think of a time when she will no longer follow me from room to room. The small dog is curled so tightly into himself he looks as if he might disappear. He sees me looking and unfolds slightly, offering a patch of his belly for a scratch. A small drab bird flits by the window. Another bird is suddenly angry, it's clipped calls a warning. Other bird voices join the quarrel and vie for attention. I wish I understood their languages. I am a foreigner in a country of birds.