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