The February sunshine steeps your boughs and tints the buds and swells the leaves within."
- William C. Bryant

Flawless canvas of sky. River mostly frozen. Wetland ribbons of blue and white, snow under sky, some openings in the ice, and the fresh water burbles and ripples. Today I have more time in the wetlands, and the snow is strong enough to support me. My youngest sleeps over. The house is full today of cheer and activity and relaxation. And, there is time to sit with my youngest, we are going through files she wants to explore. She is studying psych assessment testing in grad school. She wants to look at the files I’ve kept for her IEP’s and assessments. This leads to some feelings that need to be processed. And I think, how fortunate are the clients and students this woman will help. How she knows from the inside these struggles. I listen, and let it come. Later, in the afternoon, we have the porcelain bird auction. This is a fun time of opening the box of birds, all extinct, a collection passed down from my husband’s great aunt to his mother and to my children. My two daughters and daughter’s boyfriend and husband and the dogs are present. I am the auctioneer: we show the seventeen birds and they bid on the ones they want. We laugh a lot. And they each get the birds they very much most want. Meanwhile, I’m just sad and horrified too; how these birds exist in porcelain and not in the world. We’re all horrified. And the youngest looks them up to see who they were in the world when they lived and flew and sang and traveled, like the Passenger Pigeon.

This bird used to be the most numerous on earth
And to blot out the sun for hours over Wisconsin and Michigan
And to strip bare the great forests of cranberries, pine-nuts, and acorns.

Whole trees toppled under the weight of roosting birds. In flight
They made a sound like Niagara Falls. Horses trembled,
And travellers made wild guesses at their numbers and meaning. . .

~ Excerpt from “The Passing of the Passenger Pigeon,” by Mark Ford