Birdsong

The duvet cover is heavy this morning

The warmth between the sheets has its own gravity

Sunlight is watery at best

struggling in through the window around the aircon you have yet to remove

The house is still

peace disturbed only by the sounds of birds rousing themselves

Alighting on branches

stiff with frost

shaken to life by an avian companion.

The coffee machine tempts me from the kitchen

but I can’t summon strength to fight

against the heft of the comforter quite yet.

I stare at the off-center light on the ceiling

counting the dots of dead flies gathered in their bright grave

in the glass bulb cover.

I cast a glance at my love sleeping softly next to me,

her hair barely contained in a messy bun

Her soft skin breaking out above the covers like dawn itself

I hold my breath to see if she will stir.

But she remains still as the flies in the bulb.

My thoughts return to the coffee machine

and beyond that my home office;

a myriad of emails ranging from vaguely noteworthy to superfluous

as the slow creeping beast of career anxiety begins to wake from slumber

I banish it. Not yet. Stay still.

For just a moment.

I try to pick out a pattern in the birdsong.

A duet perhaps.

A call for action.

What are they telling me?

Or maybe not for me. Maybe a song just for its own sake.

The sun is swelling, winning its war with the aircon.

The pile of laundry on the dog crate is illuminated.

The balls of pet hair and single slippers take form.

Lazily, I pull the edge of the curtain

to reveal a carpet of frost

clinging to the aging wooden fence

and the browning grass

and the quaking bare limbs of the backyard trees.

The first snap of cold

has returned again and surprised me

its arrival, unannounced but predictable.

An old acquaintance following me from one coast to another.

Cold has a way of returning

endlessly

to hold you beneath covers

and usher away thoughts of coffee

and computers

and movement.

She hushes the molecules and calms them into a state of stillness.

I am not quite ready to defy her.

And so I remain

waiting for the sun to triumph over the frost

and lighten the heft of blankets hanging over me.

So I may rise again

and make coffee

and greet the chill

with a renewed song of my own.