Already I see and feel the increasing light.  I open Mary Oliver’s book Owls and Other Fantasies since this morning I was out early to hear an owl’s joyful hoot of goodbye to night.

In one essay called Bird, she writes of finding an injured black-back gull and bringing him into their home.  Seriously injured, he survived in their home for a few months, bringing interest, comfort, and delight. Even as he was dying, she writes, “And still the eyes were full of the spices of amusement”.  And then, …

“He was, of course, a piece of the sky. His eyes said so. This is not fact, this is the other part of knowing something, when there is no proof, but neither is there any way toward disbelief. Imagine lifting the lid from a jar and finding it filled not with darkness but with light. Bird was like that. Startling, elegant, alive.”

And then, he wasn’t, but still each day morning comes with light.