April 15, 2013

Last night, driving toward home on the street where I live, I saw my cat sitting in the window. His name is Beauchamp and he waits for me. Anyone who thinks cats are aloof or lacking in affection doesn't know cats, doesn't know my cat. He waits for me and when he sees my car, hears my key in the door downstairs, he jumps down onto the love seat so he can act like he's been there all along. Act like a cat, in other words. Aloof.

I woke up at 4:30 yesterday morning, courtesy of a bird singing in a tree near the same window. I tried sleeping again. I told the bird to shut up, and the bird went on singing, the coloratura of birds. I cursed the bird and got up to face the day. 

How many of the dead or injured heard birdsong when they woke up yesterday in Boston. Did they curse the bird or sing along with him? Who was waiting by a window for them to get home--a wife, a son, a cat? 

The bird was there again this morning. In his tree, singing, hours before the sun would come up.