Tonight I Write

Tonight I write:
For this baby bunny with ears at attention, so thin of body and translucent of skin.
For the squirrel in the branch of this tall maple, playfully jumping, no fear of falling to the earth.
For the robins that are hopping, testing an evening meal as the last of the sun’s orb sinks into the waiting earth.
I write for the mother duck sitting stoicly on her nest, ten eggs waiting to break life open.
And for the blue jays, not even the calm of evening can shake them from their sharp anger.

Tonight I write.
For the garden and seeds still softly buried, willing their sharp hulls to give way to tender sprouts.
For the white-flowered astilbe whose branches already reach for the sun.
For the newest lilac bush, whose leaves are turning brown but who refuses to give up her sweet scents.
And I write for the man who tilled so many gardens when my hands were yet small.
It is for him that I write.
The sunsets and the harvestings cannot quiet the lessons from those gardener’s eyes.
And his secrets still dance in the light of the fireflies pulsing in my yard this night.

Tonight I listen, and tonight I write.