I STAND AT the window holding a cup of coffee, eyes catching the slow light climbing over the horizon, a soft, steady burn that spills into the sky.
Outside, the crows gather, raucous voices slicing through the quiet, their sharp beaks snatching seeds, jostling each other with feathers and noise, a rough authority of the everyday.
Squirrels bound in, bold and swift, muscling through the chaos, pushing past the crows, claiming their place with flicks of tails and quick feet; no room for arguing here.
Nearby, woodpeckers hammer the suet feeder, their strikes echoing like distant drumming, each one staking a claim, a noisy duel played out in bursts of pecks and calls.
I watch all this—the small battles, the everyday claims to space—then reach for my phone, news breaking through the morning calm, a word that cracks my surface: WAR.
The light shifts, the birds fall silent in my ears, the room feels colder, and the day stretches out, fractured, uncertain, no longer the same morning.
Author’s Note
I wanted to capture a morning that starts with the usual, familiar sounds—the way nature goes on with its small struggles and routines, completely unaware of what’s coming. There’s a messy, noisy life happening just outside the window.
Then the news breaks in, sudden and harsh, pulling me (and anyone in that moment) out of the quiet into something much heavier. It’s about how quickly things can change, how even the most ordinary mornings can be upended by the weight of the world. I tried to hold that tension between normalcy and chaos, without smoothing it over or making it neat.
Upcoming…
A poem about invoking peace:
Holding Soft Things, 16 May 2026
Thanks very much for reading, subscribing, and sharing the stories, poetry, and essays in this space. If you like a story, poem, or essay, please click on the heart. Also if you are so moved, please leave a comment.
