Bird-Brained Ideas

More than once last night, when no one but the college drunks and the third-shifters were supposed to be up, I was awakened by a cardinal's frantic twitter.  There, in my bed, cool sheets holding me, I went all "mother" when I heard its staccato call, imagining a stealthy cat or hungry owl causing its fearful uttering.

It is disturbing to hear a voice out of context, calling out in the wrong time frame.

But then I considered that the cardinal might just be talking in its sleep. Which led me to wonder where all the neighborhood birds were right then, and what their sleeping arrangements looked like.  If I had super night-vision eyes, would I have seen their small forms dotting the trees, like pine cones?  Surely, there aren't enough nests for them all.  Surely, some stood stoic and silent,  iron grips on slender branches, willing themselves to sleep, despite the drag racers on O Street.

It is amazing how many things I rub shoulders with each day, and yet know so little about.  And most of those things have their roots in the natural world--the almonds I pop in my mouth yet cannot fathom growing, the cricket choir whose legs I've never seen singing, the chimney swifts that seem always to be flying.

Fortunately, this abundance of ignorance only seems to feed my sense of wonder.  In these google-saturated times when answers (right or wrong) are just two clicks away, I find comfort in the not knowing.  Instead of insisting on understanding, sometimes I am delighted to know that I don't really know all that much.  I am that cheap date who stares gape-jawed at the fistful of flowers whose names I cannot recall.

I am the neighbor, half asleep, imagining what it is that cardinals dream of.