An Early Morning Visit

By Peter Bowden

The red bird came in the early morning when the mist still clung to the garden. He sat on the iron hook where the feeder used to hang, watching with a stillness that made him part of the morning. The man stood by the kitchen window, coffee in hand, and watched too. He didn’t call it anything special. It was just a bird. But it had come again.

Sometimes, in the half-light of spring, things shimmered in ways they didn’t the rest of the year. The wind moved slow through the snapdragons. A petal fell and spun once before touching soil. The bird hopped down to the garden bed, blinking its black eyes like it remembered something. The man felt it in his chest—the pull of a name, a face, the way someone had once laughed under that same tree. Long ago, and not so long.

He never spoke when it came. Just stood still and let it be. There was no need to chase meaning. Some things were only ever meant to be felt. When the cardinal flew off, the man turned back to the sink, rinsed his cup, and smiled a little. It was a good morning to be alive. And maybe that’s all the red bird came to say.

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