Children of the universe

There has been a bunch of little twisty winds around my digs lately. It's as though March felt she didn't get her share of winds and has come back in April to settle the score, with interest.

These winds come in the night when, with storm doors and windows still tightly in place, I can't hear them.

When I've looked outside first thing in the mornings, I've seen various telltale calling cards of these nocturnal visitations.

One morning, way out in the back yard, there were two bright red porch swing cushions. They looked pretty on the green grass but out of place.

More than once I saw the flower table on the front porch had been turned over, the one with the little bird feeder mounted on it. This table and feeder had given me so much pleasure during the winter months because it was right outside my bedroom window. I had the three visiting cardinals named. One was Perky Top. His crest was so perfect, appearing to be made of spun plastic, always crisp and untattered. There was Tangerine, named for his bright orange lipstick. Testy was so named because he preferred to dine alone.

After several such nights of wind bashing, there was no longer a way to repair its shattered glass sides, broken feed troughs, splintered wood and loosened nails. Nothing to do except sweep the remains into a trash bag. There is a time for bird feeders to function, and there is a time to throw them away and start over. Until the restart, the front entrance looks unfriendly without a scattering of birds to greet callers.

The plastic rabbit which has had dibs on the latticed garden seat for many years may, after a twisty-wind night, be found under the peony bushes or actually caught two feet up in the mock orange shrub.

I've looked around at my neighbors' yards, and all I've ever seen is one lawn chair turned over. About 150 feet away, in my yard, are two mid-sized limbs broken and hanging down, swaying desultorily in the milder daytime breezes.

Mama Nature, what have I done? I've always spoken so fondly of you. Maybe too much? At this season of the year it is hard to go into ecstasies over the dogwood, azaleas, irises, fiddlehead ferns, golden sunshine, silvery rain, winds. Yes, winds. Forgive me for grumbling about them.

Sometimes the concept that the universe is all just dancing atoms manifested into different shapes and textures lies dormant in my mind; then I remember our kinship. The wind is me. I am the wind. So how can I criticize or blame just another mass of atoms that could very well be me?

You think I've gone a notion too far? Did not St. Francis of Assisi speak of Brother Fire, Sister Rain, etc., conscious of the divine unity and interdependence of creation?

An old quatrain, translated from Sanskrit, says:

"Horses, elephant and iron,

"Water, woman, man,

"Sticks and stones and clothes are built

"On a different plan."

In the "Desiderata," that wonderful old scrap of literature, we hear the author saying, "You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should."

REJOICE!

Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.