Fall migration has started, hushing whatever was screaming inside me to a stop. Birdsong has that power over me. I spend my days tending to my plants and my rescue animals fully embracing my solitude, knowing that at last I’m done with the outside world. I have dozens of juvenile Western Bluebirds and them growing into their colors has been my daily meditation on life. At first they were so brown and speckled I thought them to be juvenile European Starlings, but once I saw them in flight, I knew. If you look real close, they have some blue in their wings and if the light hits them just right, you could start to see the orange coming through on their chest. Where so many nested is unknown to me as they did not next in my Western Bluebird nesting boxes. They bathe in my small birdbath and the dogs, the cat and eye just watch. As the days go by, these bluebirds are growing into their full colors. They, too, will soon leave.
But while my days are now quiet and serene with an inner peace I have perhaps never experienced like this before, my nights have become restless. Every little thing wakes me and I can’t go back to sleep. Last night I tossed and turned all night. The restless dogs nestled against me, making it impossible for me to go back to sleep. The weirdest thoughts and aches came to me there in the dark. I ended up counting all the lovers I could never love, one by one, like sheep, who could lull me back to sleep. I used to feel bad about them, how I treated them. These days I could give two fucks. I am haunted by one lover and one lover only: The cowboy. But these days his absence comes with acceptance and understanding that I will always be haunted by him and that’s okay. I cared for him deeply and do still and always will and I hope the best for him.
When I finally fell asleep an hour before it was time to get up for work. I had a vision: The cowboy was out in the woods hunting deer now that hunting season has started, and he came upon a feather on the ground. He thought of me and picked it up knowing, because of me, that to take a feather is a federal crime. He put it in his backpack and thought, ‘Maybe someday I’ll give it to BB and she can tell me what bird it belongs to.’
Maybe in another life when the river is carrying the cowboy by, it will stop its fast-moving current and let him come to me.
Can’t count all the lovers I’ve burned through
So why do I still burn for you? I can’t say. ~Sun Kil Moon
My Love is for the Birds - Sketches 