Bird Song

By Peter Bowden



The birds began before the light did. Not all at once, but one voice testing the air, then another answering, until the dark loosened its grip. Their notes were not announcements so much as reminders that the world had turned again, that breath was still required, that something ordinary and miraculous was underway. The man lay still, listening, the way you listen to rain when you don’t yet want to rise. The song slipped through the screen, through the thin places in sleep, and rested there.

Outside, the yard held its breath. Dew clung to the grass like small, borrowed moons. A cardinal cut the silence with red certainty, while sparrows stitched the morning together with quick, nervous sound. The man thought how the birds never worried about the size of the day ahead. They sang because the light had come. They sang because that was the work. Somewhere between one note and the next, the sky softened from ink to blue.

When he finally stood, the floor was cool and the coffee unmade, but the song stayed with him. It followed him into the day, into the small tasks that asked for hands and patience. The birds did not know his name. They did not need to. They had given him what they always gave, proof that beginnings were still possible, and that every morning, if you listened closely enough, the world would tell you so.

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