Early Sunday. The air is thick and cold; mist still curls around the forest edge.

I come to look, to see, and with my eyes seek understanding.

Walking, I watch. A startled deer. A hunting fox, truly prowling. The leaves heavy with moisture hang motionless in the airless air. The dewy grass soaks my shoes, stains my jeans. I watch a spider hanging in the middle of its web, patient, attentive. A stick cracks as I tread, and two squirrels dash through the undergrowth to the safety of the nearest oak. I smile, still looking.

Over the hill comes the sun’s glow, always welcome. The rays stretch out like fingers to caress and warm the frigid land. High in the dawnlight geese stretch their long-drawn skeins, arrows pointing their destination. But what I seek is still not seen.

Bluebirds chitter as they celebrate the dawn, gaudy birds of aquamarine and red ochre. Moving, flitting, always on show on the topmost branch. They fly as I approach, calling their complaint at being disturbed so early.

I scan the clouds, wisps of nothingness in this bright today. No fear of rain, not now. And from the forest the many songs join in some celestial chorus, that is neither earth, nor is it truly heaven.

I stop to listen, and to see. For in the seeing comes the understanding.

For even here, in this place alone, seeing, I see not, and hearing I hear not, and neither do I understand. Here on Resurrection Sunday.

I shake my head, for it is not enough. Even all of this, is not enough. Not if this is all there is.

Then a small movement catches my eye. In a tangle, something moves. I peer into the dark undergrowth, and an eye looks back. Tiny, but yes, a glinting eye. The eye moves up, and out, and materializes into the form of a sparrow. I take in the red-fox streaks, the chestnut sides, the slate-gray head with chestnut too, and the flesh-pale bill. But it is the eye I watch.

Watching, the bird stares back. Eye to eye. Sight to sight. Yes, understanding to understanding.

An instant later, the bird is gone. But I do see. And live again.

All the glory of God in a Fox Sparrow’s blink.

© Jonathan Gallagher