A tweeting outside of gentle hummingbirds, the babies freshly born, swaying in the sunlight and wind of a Sunday afternoon. The mother had made her nest on the far reaches of the branch, only supportive enough for their tiny weight. Their tiny wait. Last year, we influenced them to first flight with a flick of our blinds. We just wanted to see, that which was never seen again. Oh, this year, are we witnessing the return of the mother or the child? It could be at any moment, the desire to fly out of this frigid cage and into the wild world, but for fear and lack of muscle, we wait. Here inside our same nest, surrounded by the walls our mother built to protect us. It is us with the desire to spread our wings, to see and be seen. But what of the predators? What of the ones who seek out to bury their own hungry burdens by devouring us? Our passions notwithstanding, the cycles in and out of life and seasons and miracles, birth, I say, birth is happening. All around the world, at any given second, there is birth, and I am witness to it. When I close my eyes and hear the sweet new tweets on the delicate branch outside my window, I wonder of timely life. I wonder of timely death. I wander along uncertain paths until I find myself still in bed, awakening from a songwriter’s dream. The waves, they are manufactured and pour over me, they encompass me and yet I feel safe. Safe in the history of myself, in the ever uncertain future, in the life and death cycle that follows me around like a little puppy. Who are you? Who could you think you are? These possibilities stay endless in a world of infinite possibilities. The books to be read and written, the souls to be saved and damned, the reality that none of us can know or guide our true fate, only just to listen. To make new friends. To discover the solace of solitude and the joyous celebration of society. What have we become, it is a mystery to those inside. From outside, there is seen something, someone, new. A new birth. This skinny branch holding up my weight. My weight, rapidly growing and sinking, exploding and inflating, slithering and squeezing out. My weight, holding on to me, keeping me tucked securely in my nest and on solid ground. My weight, the gravity of it all. Who could you think you are? Some one? Some thing? Some self-aware being? Some floating object in space? Some sinking ship? A potato? The imagination will allow it all, the reality would allow it, if only we could break through these walls of time and place and setting and experience. We could be the potato. What a simple life, to grow underground, out of sight, to be the root grown for eating, is it a root? Am I? Where do my roots lie if I am the root? The same repetition of questions, on loop, on cycle, on mind and body and tongue and fingertips. There is this certain… how does one say with just language, I needs must move and sing and dance and draw and happenstance into another realm, the delightful universe where there was once just dark. The quantum mechanics telling me my car brake lights won’t go off, but I can’t see them. I trust the latch is broken. But for someone else, my foot serves as the latch and they see a fully functional brake light. A simple and inappropriate metaphor. Not very applicable at all. The brakes, the light won’t turn off unless I pull up with my foot or place a brick underneath the pedal, pushing it up, these breaks braking, these broken brakes, they keep me spinning in a direction and it seems like I could stop at any minute, but then, at the exact moment of fruition, I topple safely down a path I’ve never seen. I’ve lost momentum, I’ve gained it back again. My feet and these birds. First flight. Who could I think I am? Who could we be?