Cloudless and barren, a pale blue sky offers unobstructed views of a sun yearning to warm the earth.  Remanded to the custody of a winter not yet ready to step aside, we wait for later days that will bring a change, a new growth, a thaw of that which has been frozen beneath cold hands and icy heavens.

Still, a warming breeze constantly races in from the west.  Perhaps in another time and place it could be called a zephyr, but not this wind.  It gusts with fervency akin to haste.  Its almost hurried pace across the land keeps a bite in the air despite weak rays of sunshine competing for attention.

Sparrows trill contentedly from the tree just outside my patio.  From time to time they dash to the ground and feast on what melted snow has revealed.  They and their cousins, mourning doves and mockingbirds and cardinals and starlings, have accepted the day’s offering and given their own.  How I enjoy the probing dance they perform.

It’s doubtful anything will be left of yesterday’s wintry waltz in another hour or two.  So much already has vanished.

They will stand guard, though, and continue hunting and pecking until nightfall.  Only then will they flit away toward home, toward rest.  Whether I should tell them there will be no more birdseed has vexed me for days.  I don’t know how long the dry spell might last.  It could be a month or two.  It could be longer.  I know they wouldn’t understand even if I told them, but don’t I owe them at least that much?  An attempt?

I’ve opened the blinds throughout the house.  Bright, tepid rays fall about me.  It’s a blanket wrapped around my shoulders on a cool February day.  As one might expect, The Kids have since migrated to areas where they can lie in patches of daylight filtering through the windows.  Some nestled together; others resting alone; all napping.  How can I not envy them their tranquility?

Pondering the greater meaning of things has become my pastime of late.  The greater meaning of me.  The greater meaning of life and the cosmos.  The greater meaning hidden just beyond this bend of time, somewhere there in the future, perhaps only a day or two away.  And so I ponder.  It’s not for a divine meaning in it all.  I need no such thing.  Divinity makes it all messy… dirty… less magnificent than it truly is.  But the depths of it all, the limits, and the future.

What will become of us?  I fear not only for the immediate considerations, but likewise for the whole of the thing.  The six of us could well be displaced quite soon.  On a grander scale so vast as to be stupefying, the billions of us and innumerable of the greater collective we easily might find ourselves ejected from home by our own doing.  Neither possibility holds much promise and both leave me frightened, crouched inside my mind and shivering.

However, it’s difficult to look at such days like this one without feeling a degree of peace and joy.  It’s as though I reached into the sky, grabbed a handful of brilliance, and consumed it only to find it shared its incredible existence with me.  How can such times be twofold in such diametrically opposed ways?  Ah, it’s that universe again… always hiding but one more bit of mystery behind its back, something it can show later, which will help us realize that we haven’t figured it all out yet.  What a wondrous, thrilling place.  What a scary, overwhelming place.

Leaves rustling on the evergreens outside sing a song that feels meant for me.  It’s a beautiful rhythm, a bellowing bass that rocks the core of me like the drum of an ancient heart.  And the trilling of the birds, a bit of flute thrown in by those most familiar with nature’s music, adds a tinge of height to a work written in lows.  So I listen.  And enjoy.  And ponder.