Fractured Pastoral

Spring is like a shell game; now you see it, now you don't.  Rural  hours demand my attention to the scant sun that will make an appearance one day, and hide behind clouds of steel wool on hours.  We spend our days talking about the greenery, the first color (yellow) that the new season presents to us, and of course, the birds, with their 5000 foot view of everything we cannot possibly know , though we try to , nevertheless. In a time of war, a bird working to nest, up close , seems a miracle. With perspective, a fractured pastoral.  Their resilience and persistence  contains a lesson I have often been too stubborn to learn: let the sun and what the trees might contain call to you.  Or succumb to the endless calculations you will make with your feet on the ground, losing the ability to even look up.