Meet Bonny and Bill

We have a little miracle unfolding by our kitchen window this spring. Two bluejays found our tree, and began building a nest in it. Pascal noticed the two of them on a day when he was wearing both his bluejay T-shirt and his bluejay sweater, and he was overjoyed.

They flew back and forth around the neighbourhood, carrying sticks and twigs and grass.

For one unbelievably sweet moment, they dropped their burdens and met on a fence rail. They nestled their heads together and then went about their gathering again.

"Let's name them Bonny and Bill," Vava suggested.

Bill looked in the window, his beak so full of twigs and branches that it looked like he had whiskers. He seemed to approve.

Pascal and I were playing soccer in the kitchen, window open, and, forgetful of the little guests, were whooping and banging around noisily. Bonny looked up from her busy nesting and watched. She didn't leave or even back away; I think she knows we meant no harm. I wonder if she knows that she is watching our nest, where we slowly raise our own noisy, needy fledgelings.

I can't capture a good picture, but this is Bonny, tailfeathers in the air, busily building her nest.

The Strait of Hormuz

I am so tired of hearing about 

The Strait of Hormuz 

So tired of

The unplanned tantrums and 

War and rumours of war.

Please God, I think 

Let me hear about the Bay of Fundy instead

- my own slice of grey-blue ocean, rising and falling against my own coast -

And then I remember the last time I heard about the Bay of Fundy on the news

Six years ago 

And I choke my prayer back before it hits the ceiling.

I pray instead that I will no longer need to hear about

The Strait of Hormuz 

Or the Bay of Fundy 

Or Uvalde

Or 62 million 

Or the Epstein Files 

Or any other of the seemingly limitless ways 

Humans have found to hold the helpless hostage.

I fall back on the small prayer I whisper over my children as they fall asleep:

Help us love our neighbours as ourselves.

God have mercy.

Like cheese, like wine

You haven't aged a day! 

Is a compliment, a thing 

People throw around like a 

Rose straight to the face. 

I want to say, instead,

I like the way you've aged,

The way your lines have fallen in pleasant places:

Starburst rivulets of laughter and determination

Graven and grooved into skin;

Eyes that carry the burden and light 

Of slow-earned wisdom;

Arms that have known the ache of emptiness and have offered the comfort of silence.

You carry the weight of your years like someone who has walked long

Learning to discard the things that don't matter

And to weigh the value of what does.

Does your hair glint, lighter than it used to be?

So, too, does your readiness to laugh 

And cry.

We are older, and I am so glad.

I like the way you've aged.