The Gift

The tree outside the window was bare, its branches black thrust through the air, like a nightmare in daylight lingers, its branches resembled evil fingers. The sky behind was stony gray, it looked like it might rain that day, I briefly wondered why I'd woke, sat up in bed and lit a smoke. So quiet is it by the lake! My ears felt hollow, began to ache, a city girl, I'm used to sound, the ambient noise of a busy town. What if I'd turned the TV on, would the vacuum inside the room be gone? The cat, I noted, was fast asleep, a lump beneath the quilts and sheet. I glanced again at the blank TV, then looked once more at the skeletal tree, it seemed to sigh as if forlorn, just waiting for Spring to be reborn. For a moment, I just sat and stared, the sky so gray, the tree so bare, stark silhouette of black on gray, the tomb-like silence where I lay. These turned my mind to darker things, my boring job, the fatigue it brings, scattered off-days wasted sleeping, life-force through my fingers seeping. Sleep all day and work all night, wonder if there's an end in sight, keep a brave face so they won't see how this schedule's killing me. Just then I saw a flash of red, though depressed, I raised my head, A cardinal sat and cocked his head, the black, the gray, the brilliant red. I see the beauty in the starkness, a flash of hope among the darkness, this perfect scene a gift to me, the genius, its simplicity. And as I felt my depression lift, God granted me another gift. He knew just how to ease my woes, before my eyes, it began to snow. It's snowed so rarely in my life, each memory's sharper than a knife, the cardinal flutters in the tree, and shakes me from my reverie. The magic of life is quiet and subtle, the bud of a rose, a mirror-like puddle, the magic is there if you let yourself see, like the snow swirling 'round the bird in the tree.