Bucolia

A beautiful spring morning in the upper US. Our backyard, fenced and dogless, has an Edenic look. The cottontail rabbit who has adopted us sits near the patio, hoping, I think, for me to open the door and toss out some more scraps. Finches and chickadees have gathered in the cherry tree, chittering and sometimes dashing to the feeder for safflower seeds (which squirrels for some reason don’t eat).

Speaking of squirrels, one is on the platform feeder, stealing sunflower seeds. We have an ongoing battle, the squirrels and I, they climb up the thin metal pole, I yell at them or toss a rubber ball in that general direction (I realized I don’t have the speed or accuracy I once did) and they jump down.

This morning I let him gorge himself. It’s that kind of day, the gentle warmth of spring, the sun giving ample light without the aggressive glare of late summer. A soft breeze, bits of green poking up midst the brown.

As I said, Edenic. And I find myself with two competing trains of thought. One says, “how beautiful, how ideal, what a testament to what can be.” Where there is beauty, I tell myself, there is hope and promise.

Another voice reminds me the day is transitory -- the winter that just left will come again, those animals are essentially condemned to short lives with unpleasant endings, and even I have a finite time to be. I think of how my father did what I do with the outside life, and of mornings I spent with him years ago. Gone now, and so will this. A sour point of view, but sound I suppose.

So I wonder which is the better view (if there is one).

I opt for neither. I tell my logical mind to shut up and let today be.

This day is wonderful, and I shall savor it. I don’t own the past and the future does not yet exist. I have only today, and there is no need to sully it with melancholia and other muck dredged up by my coldly logical mind. Tomorrow will come, I know that. I know nothing more.

I breathe deep and watch the cardinals at the feeder, and enjoy the touching moment when the male offers a seed to his mate, which she accepts gracefully, an act which seems a token, if I may anthropormorphize, of affection.

I am no Pollyanna. I know bad things happen. But I know I have today, this body, this place. I have now and it is worth having.