THE SIGNIFICANCE QF BIRDS

I’ve already buried two wedges in the gnarled old fir round, and now my ax is stuck. Only one wedge left. I give it a couple of hard shots with the sledge and stop, hands tingling and ears ringing from metal-on-metal impact. The sun is finally burning through the marine cloud layer, raising an eerie ground-level mist from the damp soil. The woods come to life with birds: towhees, chickadees, wrens, kinglets, sparrows.

In the spring of my junior year of college, my best friend almost died. It was intentional, self-inflicted, and not quite successful. But it was close. And I found myself unable to grasp how something like this could happen, as they say, out of the clear blue sky.

When he was released from the hospital, we sat on the curb outside the entrance, waiting for our ride. It was April and a resurgent sun warmed the earth. The air was sweet with blooming flowers. Small birds filled a tree across the road, chattering and hopping from branch to branch. What, I wondered, could be more benign, more hopeful than this?

“Why did you do it?” I asked.

“It’s spring,” he said in a distracted monotone. “The birds are singing.”

“Yeah…?”

“I can’t hear them anymore.”

A year later, also in April, I was living overseas when his mother called. He’d finally succeeded. The service would be in three days… Could I be there?

When we carried him from the hearse to the graveyard, the late afternoon sun hurt my eyes and the lawn glowed radiant green. I could see each blade of grass in sharp relief. A flock of blackbirds swooped overhead, flaring and shifting direction in unison like a school of baitfish before settling in trees along the path. I was thankful then, and more so with every passing spring, to hear the birds and feel the season.