Flitting, fleeting, flirting.
The little bird comes to his window every morning, usually when he is putting the kettle on and making a cup of tea, bleary-eyed from another restless night’s sleep. She dances from branch to branch on the wisteria vine outside, which is beginning to show the first green buds of spring.
It’s been a long, cold winter, a winter of back aches and socks and undies bunched around the heater; a winter where the empty spot next to him in bed seems to grow colder and hollower by the night. But now, as he puts out the bins on Tuesday night, he notices a new mildness in the air. Some jonquils are popping up in his neighbour’s lawn across the road, and now, she is here. This little one, this little bird, who has decided to pay him a visit at about 7.30 every morning.
In the centre of the Bible, just a few books down from the Psalms, is a collection of erotic poetry. It is known as the Song of Songs. Many times people have argued for its exclusion from the Christian canon, but here it remains, the testament of two lovers who are endless in pursuit of each other: looking for each other, finding each other, losing each other, and then looking all over again.
The dance of the two unwed lovers has reminded many, over the centuries, of the dance between God and people. The way that God pursues us, tapping on a window, frolicking in some dried-up leaves, baubling joyfully in the creek as we pass it by. We trudge along on the path, or dunk the teabag unceremoniously in the hot water, and then, all of a sudden, there she is, peering through the glass, or fluttering to the ground in front of us.
And like any beloved, we have a choice: do we go back to the teabag dunking, or do we look right back, smile, and know that she is here to see us?
Words by Rev Andreana
Image by Marg Edwards
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