Blood Flowing

In cold weather, cardinals nest together in the boughs of evergreen trees, huddling as a group for warmth. Just now, as the faintest line of light ran along the eastern horizon, I heard the faint pip of a cardinal in the large pine outside.

And I have to wonder, as I sometimes do, if they stretch when they wake up. Dogs do. Cats do. Do cardinals open their masked eyes , yawn with their conical beaks — that’s another question…do birds yawn? I can’t recall if I ever saw any of my chickens yawn — or open their wings wide and get in a good pinion-cracking stretch, just to get the blood flowing?

Or frogs who bury themselves in the frigid mud at the bottoms of ponds during the winter…when they are roused by nature’s revielle, do they go through some croak-yoga routine to loosen up before they kick their way to the surface and start clocking the area for food? I do know that butterflies emerging from their chrysalides open their damp wings to the sun and breeze and fan them gently, like a crop duster warming its engine.

And while I chew the mental cud of such weighty problems, my coffee cools in the mug and the big hand is sweeping around towards that numeral at the bottom of the dial.

~ S.K. Orr