Lesson from the Backyard

I see beauty and wonder every day from the kitchen sink.

Scuttling, long-tailed lizards, doves, and quail diving into the periwinkle ground cover to hide from hawks and the sun.

A vermillion flycatcher in the grass gazing at me.

Deer grazing from rose bush to flower beds to wild grasses, resting under trees, at some point in the day walking single-file down the creek-side path.

The hedgehog cactus flowers, wilting within twenty-four hours, anthers glowing like stardust from impossibly thin filaments.

A pencil-thin ring-necked snake. The bull snake and kingsnake that keep away the rattlers.

The bobcat, rabbit, and roadrunner each choosing the shade of one particular mesquite tree at a particular time as the best place to keep cool in 100+ temperatures.

The deep-throated surprise of the bullfrog that wakes me up just as I fall asleep.

A high sweet birdsong that whispers to my morning dreams.

The Northern Cardinal, which has made its home in the south, landing twice on the window ledge in front of my desk, peering in, turning its head this way and that.

Pristine white magnolia buds once opened, quickly turn mottled brown in the heat and drop to the patio at the next big wind. The constancy of the gardener who sweeps up after the big winds.

The baby hummingbird that took wing (I hope) while we were away.

Sycamore, mesquite, cottonwood, ash and white, pink, and magenta crape myrtle. Desert willow and Texas ranger bushes, the giant banksia rose bush, barrel cactus, purple prickly pear, and all the others I've not learned the name of yet.

Storm clouds gathering over the mountains, rising, rising, growing darker, then suddenly gone.

And here the lesson speaks — as deeply real as my unquiet mind seems — I only need to glance up and see a young buck with growing velvet antlers bend to the waters of the lily pond and drink — and like disappearing clouds, dark thoughts vanish.

Observing, and writing about what I observe. I am gifted every day and I thirst for it.