The Shade of the Hawthorne

The Hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age or whispering lovers made.
Oliver Goldsmith

I’m feeling a little raw this evening, exposed, vulnerable, overly sensitive to the heartbeat and breath of life. One of those times when the one less layer of skin is most apparent, when each twig broken with each step, each rustle of leaf in the wind, each blink of a star in the evening sky is a metaphor of profound significance. And each profundity brings renewed sensitivity to the bittersweetness of life.

Bella and I watched a curious scene this afternoon. Bella is a calico with short legs and a charming nick in her left ear that appears to be a sort of female feline embellishment. She is naughty and flirtatious and whimsical. All the right characteristics … for a cat. With a generous dose of the requisite curiosity.

This afternoon I was pulled from my latest art project - an attempt to duplicate a style of painting for my daughter with modifications that will make it compatible with her college room décor. (She may be overestimating my abilities, somewhat.) But it was a soft, almost imperceptible “cheep! cheepcheep!” that brought me to the foyer where Bella was already enthralled by the source of the chirping.

There, through the front window, we could see what appeared to be a mama bird calling her young ones from their nest. The mama sat on the front porch rocker, cheeping her gentle cheep, as one by one a smaller bird emerged from the Hawthorn bush planted nearby. As each came forward from the shade of the leaves, he first perched on the arm of the rocker, where he added some chirps of his own. Then mama flew to a branch in the Crepe Myrtle and baby soon followed.

With this bird safely in the arms of the Crepe Myrtle tree, mama bird would return to the rocking chair and call forth another bird. And the sequence was repeated. One after one they emerged, four in all. The last, as if reluctant to leave what he knew for the world that he didn’t, returned briefly to sit on the arm of the rocker once again. But mama was insistent, and baby very quickly flew off again to follow her and to ultimately seek the world beyond the shade of the Hawthorn bush.

Throughout this tableau, Bella sat, nose to the glass, with an occasional backward glance at me as if to say, “Do you see this? Are you watching? Can you tell me what it means?”

She seems to seek the metaphor as well.