My Cardinal

The calendar says spring,
but my world still waits for
the return of my cardinal,
a streak of red moving
from branch to branch,
or landing on the railing
of the farmer’s porch
outside my library window.

In the pendant moment
between winter’s last hush
and the promise of spring,
my cardinal’s return is
as welcome as breath,
a sign of vibrant rebirth.

Every year I wonder,
will I see him again,
back from wherever
he spends the
long winter weeks; will
I hear his song sounding
through the still-cold mornings,
a bright insistence and
a calling back to life?

I watch for him now, in whatever
form he may arrive. I realize
one day it may be just as a memory,
for I have always known that
while the world is ever-changing,
the cycle of life is eternal.

My cardinal, his red flame
against the light of morning,
his song a clear thread in the
fabric of both my expectation
and of my belonging,
even as the world around me,
mercurial in its ways, endures.

— Deb Stone
   March 2025