Bluebird, I am Sad

Copyright Amy Aves Challenger 2014

Bluebird, why are you staring at me?

I watch your dark shimmery eyes through the thick panes of my tall window, casually snacking on seeds with your neighborhood friends. You chirp to one another making morning music that sings to the grassy field with little effort. Crickets and bullfrogs call back to you, and you know you are not even close to alone.

Not alone like me.

Your bodies flitter as sky colored angels, just dropped from heaven, to entertain the heavy lives down here. We plod along. Though you may be a mother like me, bluebird, still you are free to play, to jump, to dance, to peck, to holler, and to fly away at any moment.

Bluebird I’m tired.

I envy your perky crown of feathers, your carefree fuzz able to go whichever way it chooses. I admire your ability to balance on every surface as though the earth is only a playground to you. Your tiny dots of thought glance at me when my back is turned, tending to a child’s scream or catching a falling orange glass of carrot juice. You see that I am arched over like a bending branch, my bones cracking and tired. You wouldn’t dare rest on me. You might fall. Mothering has worn me. I am a shut-in, trapped among the smell of dirty socks, sweeping crumbs for pleasure. I am a heavy vessel living above flat feet sliding a broom across years of dusty floors.

Bluebird I am sad.

I cannot find the right place for my child this week. He feels lost, and he has told me so. How I wish I could simply hop over to another tree, and find some new fruit, a new home to rest upon, just like you do. I yearn to feel the cool damp wind in my hair, to float above this place, to carry my boy on my back, smiling down on the world like I imagine every bird does.

Bluebird I have hope.

My child saw your face, he heard your song, and he smiled. “Look at the bluebird mom! I want to live in the forest, with the animals, out there,” he said pointing, as he watched you gobble up the seeds we poured into your house yesterday. I wonder if you came here to feed our souls, to tell us that our homes are temporary, and our problems are as transient as the molecules of air that you glide across. I wonder if you are my gift today, reminding me that all mothers are sisters, and maybe I can fly off to a mysterious land this morning, even if only for this moment, just like you.