Just birds can do it. They are the true acrobats of the air. The only entertainers that can both sing & fly. 

   When a loved one dies we seek their presence in birds. We imagine them in clouds. We seek them in our dreams.

   Ground & sea are sacred. But, angels & gods exist invisibly above us.  

   Thus it is birds that astound me. We cannot all sing on tune. Bird's can.

   None of us can fly. Birds sew the air with ease. I never tire of watching hawks cross-stitch patterns against the sky. 

   The humans that come close to soaring are circus acrobats. As circuses vanish where will they go?

   Consider caregivers. Each is an acrobat called upon to balance tasks with the greatest of ease & juggle better than any torch-tossing clown. 

   Birds communicate by singing. Amid the horrors of slavery, African Americans learned to do the same. Their tunes, appropriated by Stephen Foster & others, live in our lexicon.

   Slaves discovered what birds know & caregivers can learn. Singing is a form of flying. Amid suffering a song can lift us above the clouds & let us glide above trouble for awhile. 

-Erie Chapman

Photograph: "Soaring" by erie