Morning Thanks--Morning Sun

It ain't going to make a penny's worth of difference to anyone else, but the degree of joy in my heart is worth sharing anyway. For the first time in months, this neighbor of mine, a junko, is in the sun. It may not have been his first morning to bask the way he is--perhaps I didn't notice it before because the morning sky was overcast. But yesterday when I looked outside, this is what I saw--and it was wonderful.

The word is, Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his dusky suite, saw his shadow, and went back to sleep for six weeks, or whatever is the requisite time. Bah, humbug! You got to be a pagan to believe such notions. Besides, who knows how the local groundhogs fared that day? Not me. You don't see them anyway all that often--once in a while, maybe, and when you do, you pull a rifle off the rack.

But what I see when I saw this--the sun outside my window--is all I need to see to know the end is in sight. Soon enough, it'll be my birthday, a day I would say, if I were Lakota, that I've lived for "seventy winters." It wasn't just a fancy turn of phrase; that description carried with it a shaggy coat of hard knocks: seventy summers out here means bearing up under some significant heat maybe; seventy winters gives a man or woman some gravitas. 

The good news is, right outside my window the sun made itself at home again. 

I'll admit it--that junko has his feathers fluffed. It's so regrettably cold as of late, I think I just might become a Republican. I'm not saying that little guy was comfortable out there. What I am saying is that the pitch of the house is sort of kiddy-wampus, so that for most of the fall and winter the sun spreads dawn's early light elsewhere. But yesterday, for the very first time, I noticed the feeder and the deck lit gloriously by a sun I'm going to see a ton more of from here on in until fall. See?

That's a picture of beauty. This guy's a recipient of the blessing--just outside my window. First day in months the feeder is catching whatever warmth there is in the morning sun. 

Calls for a song, I say, if you've got time, a great old Beatles tune spun out here by three old coots who made some pretty fine music in their own seventy-plus winters--in fact, still do. 

This morning's thanks is nothing more or less than the blessing of a morning sun.