poem for a sunday morning

what are heavy? sea-sand and sorrow,

what are brief? today and tomorrow,

what are frail? spring blossoms and youth,

what are deep? the ocean and truth.

christina rossetti, sing song, 1872

blogging again?

 or . . coming back from hiatus . . or . . finally finding a footing in the midst of intense transitions . . or . . i just miss my mom so much that it hurts to live my life without her on earth? i was fortunate to have her around for so long. her mother died when she was twenty one. she would talk about that often . . about how her mother suddenly had a stroke in her sleep while they were traveling in california and she had to fly back to new york with her body on the plane somewhere in the baggage compartment. i could always sense the pain in that repeated statement. i would love to have met her mother, my german grandmother. i would love to have asked her questions about growing up on a farm in northern germany, about wearing wooden shoes and living with the cows and eating out of a communal pot set in the middle of the dining table.  i knew my father's mother, my italian grandmother, but of course there are so many questions that i would have liked to have asked her now that i'm so grown and curious. i didn't think to ask them when i was fifteen, and so i don't think i really knew her at all. she didn't speak english, and i didn't speak sicilian, or italian . . and then she died. the time we have to understand our older loved ones is too short! we are so busy growing up, and then maybe having children or working very intense and important jobs, and then death comes, and we lose our chance to know the physical person. perhaps that's why we place such importance on life beyond earth. we hope for a second chance to love and truly know and appreciate the people we knew on earth. perhaps. however, we can't live our lives thinking we have second chances, because earth and the living beings presently on it are too important and precious. earth is paradisal, and the people are special. we have to love and take care of each other now. 

alright, so much for the philosophical musings. it's springtime in new york city, and everywhere there are daffodils, pansies, tulips, magnolia blossoms, snow drops and crocuses. i hear the mockingbird singing for a mate at night, and the white-throated sparrow singing to the sun in the morning. my audubon app helps me to identify the bird calls. it's so amazing! i never see the birds, i just hear them every day and it's wonderful to go on this app and search for the birds that others are identifying in the neighborhood, and then listen to the bird calls to match up with what i'm hearing. we have cardinals, blue jays, black capped chickadees, sparrows, starlings, white-throated sparrows, and mockingbirds. oh, of course we have pigeons! oh! and mourning doves. the doves are very sweet and sit and coo on the fire escape windowsill until madeline comes along and scares them away. of course, the blue jays are the most precocious and boisterous.