It is the Christmas Season and all the nests have come out in the Field, in its wildways (yours too somewhere near you, in woodlots and city wild spots). The hidden places have been made bold. A cardinal’s nest and a sparrow’s and high up in a tree close to the road, big as a box, a crow’s nest, unknown until now (for in Spring they go quietly back and forth), and cavities everywhere for those who require them.
If I could, I would lace these nests with LED lights, discretely, without cords, so that they shown in the bushes and low trees and high up like solitary beacons and goads to our thankfulness for all those creatures we take for granted, for life, for its consecrations, for how easy it is to obliterate it.
So in this Christmas Season, this season of Hanukkah and lights, this Winter Solstice, four days into the return of more light and closer to the return of all the bright birds, please give thanks for all the sacred life in your home, for those who smile in welcome at the end of your buzzing texts and posts, for the children who sleep safely under your roof, for the friends who keep you sane, and for all, all the innocents who grace this meteoric life, for truly, we are all fugitives given sanctuary by the love and presence of others.
