In April, if the spirit moves me, I devote hours of my life to watching our two bird feeders
religiously. They hang from wrought iron poles curved at the top like Romanesque arches
and swing like incense burners sanctifying the nave of our backyard. Underneath you can usually see
grey squirrels eating in grass still the color of church pews, picking up sunflower seeds
that have fallen and lifting them in cupped paws up to their mouths in the perfect posture of prayer,
thankful for the body and spirit of the seeds, perhaps asking the chickadees to descend again
like angels and spill even more as these communicants celebrate salvation from the long hunger of winter.