I went on a neighborhood walk this morning, where I first saw this carpet of petals and blossoms.  A few blocks beyond, a woman pushing a child in a stroller smiled when she saw what I had managed to appropriate from the ground under the lilac bush.

At the end of the street I kneeled down to check on a baby bird lying on its back, its heart beating furiously.  I felt helpless, suspecting that it was about to become a meal for a crow, but unable to think of any way to protect it.  I hoped its parents would come to its rescue.  As I started to climb a short hill my left knee began to hurt, the after-effects of walking like a maniac the past few weeks, but I was distracted from the pain when the sun came out from behind a cloud to take a bow.  I waved at a few neighbors, smiled at walkers I didn’t know, who seemed as happy as I was that the sky was mostly blue.  About halfway along my route, my eyes began to water from the pollen.  When I arrived home my cat was sitting on the walkway watching for me, already purring by the time I reached him, because he knew he would be snacking soon.  Joy, beauty, sadness, pain, family, community, pleasure, sorrow, companionship, birth, middle age, death.  All of human reality encapsulated in a walk around my neighborhood.