Two gold finches fluttered wildly together, ducked and dove, slid airborne over freshly mown grass and rose together; molten gold streaming above the side lawn…singing as they disappeared around the corner and off in the direction of the lake. Blessings. The smaller life gifts tumbled generously all around recently; velvet pockets of hope emptying and resting lightly as fragile gossamer above the black line of the pandemic, gas lines, division and rancor, missing students…uncertainty all around. She breathed slowly.

Reticent pounding rose next door as one or two early rise construction workers began building a neighbor’s patio; too early for serious noise…small beginnings nevertheless, a wacking of a steel hammer…someone shouted. Silence.

The porch was heating up…after a thousand mornings of grey and rain, the land began to bloom and burst forth. May in these parts was often a cautious experiment in hope; altering days of weak snow, thick rain, sudden heat and rapid growth; a shuddering bridge between winter and summer…one of those silken pockets of hope. Every morning was new, different…surprising.

The sound of the early bus creaked somewhere toward the back of the neighborhood; a roundabout, thick black wheels, braking…up the hill, grinding as it heaved left…and…gone. It was time to go. She rose up and headed to her office, to the laptop waiting on the desk.

The new child from Equador was seated and ready. 7:30 on the dot. Headphones. Attentive. Eager. Still puzzled. Hoping.

In the early morning pandemic shuffle, general chaos…cameras flickering on…blankets, dusky bedroom interiors…a dog…a parent cursing and then quickly silent as the mute button shuts it all off. Initial attendance noted. The crowd staggers in at a variety of times. Attendance will have to be taken a second time and then a third and final time around 12:15. Coffee. Go…

It was fresh apple pie and wild roses on back roads; the clunky vacuum standing lonely in the hallway and August school supplies at the local Ben Franklin; iced glass bottles of Coca Cola and dirtied bare feet in the local grocery; bone china egg cups and crisped toast and mugs of cocoa on the neighbor’s stoop as we waited for the bus; the year after he became sick when she made pans of hot homemade granola, pulling them from the oven in her forever house robe and apron; the countless prayers, admonitions about the trustworthy status of cats and the piano; the Steinway in all the glory of old ivory and antique strings as we lay on the carpet underneath the piano, listening as her short strong fingers flew over the instrument, transporting us to other centuries and different lives and future dreams. All this and more…have made her Mother…

‘Girl…what are you wearing?’ He looks down at the clumpy Teva sandals on her feet. ‘Boy…have you not been hearing about my bum knee lately? I’m wearing a brace. I can’t handle heels today’. She looks at his face. ‘Even for you, my love. Even for your commencement. Teva clunk it is’.

He sighs. ‘You look…you look…’ his voice trails off. ‘The word you are searching for is ‘granola’. Granola…’hangers on’ from 1969…through hikers…communes or wanna be revolutionaries…granola…bad cereal…pseudo rejection of bourgeoisie thoughts…’

He looks out the window. ‘Yes…none of which fits you…granola. No, I don’t see it. You know where granola goes?’ She replies, ‘Yes…the sink…or stale in the box’. He sighs.

‘Help me clunk out to the car, Halston’ she commands. ‘Well’ he concedes as he takes her arm and guides her down onto the porch…’you redeemed it with a fresh pedicure, I see’. She turns to him and smiles as he stares at her feet.

‘Because boy, in my soul…in my soul…I’m Chanel’. Together they walk into the glorious May morning…

A murder of crows and a company of parrots. Staff meetings. An ambush of tigers and a congregation of alligators. Albany’s Department of Education. A cloud of bats. A convocation of eagles. Politicians. A business of ferrets. An army of frogs. The Department of Justice. A stand of flamingoes. An array of hedgehogs. Social media. A siege of herons. A leap of leopards. Custodians. A parliament of owls. Teachers.

I have never loved the English language more.

We as a family were not adept at early rising. Except for Dad who quietly folded himself into each new day; rising sometimes at 5 and on other days at 5:30…as the spirit led and as the need for strong, black boiled coffee surfaced.

Numerous times during those early days of elementary school, the rumbling bumbling yellow school bus headed up Seymour Street and we made quick decisions about clothing and breakfast. We needed both. Mom solved the problem.

We waited quietly and slightly stunned on the neighbor’s stoop, clothed and holding mugs of steaming hot chocolate and slices of warm buttered cinnamon toast. Our instructions were clear. We were to leave mugs and toast scraps on the stoop when finished. We were to get on the bus. Admit nothing. Don’t tell any family secrets.

When the bus was long gone, stinking diesel fumes fading into the cold as the vehicle lumbered down the hill and around the bend by the house with the stone wall, Mom slunked across the cold street in her house robe quickly retrieving the dishes and food remnants off the stoop.

We made yearly trips out to South Dakota, in the blast furnace of July long before air conditioning was standard in cars. The temperatures soared by mid morning to over 100 degrees. Our instructions were clear. ‘Beat the heat’. This admonition meant rising at 4am or so to hit the road, bringing us smack dab back around to our problem that we by nature were not early risers. Except for Dad who quietly folded himself out of the hotel door and into the early morning black ink to pack the car and search for old coffee in a cold thermos.

Mom solved the problem. Our duty was made clear. ‘Don’t think. Move’. 4am is not happening when one refuses to react and respond. Awful. Yet some of childhood’s sweetest memories are wrapped in mornings when the blazing sun rose over the prairie line, shimmering to boiling in the sweet early air; the earth smelling of purple flax and cold well water and black soil and angus cattle. A hundred miles in any direction was empty dawn coolness rising to heat along with the solitude and the promise of French toast at the next greasy truck stop and a highway ribbon slicing through a thousand years of quiet buffalo. On this Mother’s Day weekend…here’s to you Mom…

He stands by the window, having drawn back the heavy curtains, looks out awhile and then with determination makes his pronouncement. ‘It definitely looks like fall out there’.

In the night somewhere, sky and air have turned overcast, weighing heavier and smelling more nuanced and thickly earth laden; wet. Last evening, the clouds high above the neighborhood rested brilliant white, similar to a Parish painting, with the light above the white puffy floating shapes nesting against astonishing blue; as if the glory of an Angel shone through; an Angel resting quietly and watching the streets from a heavenly tilt; noting the seasonal changes, our comings and goings.

‘I bought some critters yesterday; an apple critter for me and an almond one for you’. He heads downstairs. I sit up. A critter? If we are reduced to eating critters, then I am not giving the impending school year a second blasted thought.

‘Hey! Critters?’ I yell down the stairs. ‘You know…you know, those flaky pastry…things’. His voice fades and I can hear him, yes I hear it…the waving of his hand in exasperation. ‘Do you mean fritters?’ I try again. ‘Fritters?’ He responds. ‘Yes, yes…whatever…it’s what I said. They’re really good. Come down and make strong coffee!’

Minutes later, standing in the kitchen…’Autumn in New York’…I hum a few strains since I never remember the words; relieved at the privilege of returning to normal breakfast fare…

He looks mournfully at me. ‘Why, why did you ignore me yesterday?’ He’s wearing a truly tragic face. I turn to look directly at him. ‘I did not ignore you. I did not’. He’s silent. I start again. ‘I did not. I apologize if you thought that because I do not ignore you’. He puts his head down on the desk. This conversation is not moving forward.

Now… begins the delicate dance, the shuffle of truth with kindness, the borrowing of someone else’s sorrow with permission. I extend my hand and take from one child’s grief pile and move it to the other; expecting somehow to borrow discouragement and return it, while manipulating it to become part of a healing process or a stopgap; to return distress with an extra cup of sugar and a warm blanket and a piece of chocolate…but it’s tricky. It is risky.

I look away from him and look directly at her. I talk to him while speaking to her. He’s listening. She’s watching. I start again; picking up the fallen thread of the recent conversation. ‘Sometimes, I have to work with other students who need me more’. Silence. I address her. ‘May I tell him why I am working with you now?’ ‘Yes’ she says and smiles. I watch her and address him. ‘She can’t read yet’. I continue quickly, ‘but she will read some day…’ She smiles and says, ‘Yes because I am blind. And you know my Mom is working with that…because I am blind’.

I look at her, at her bright shiny, healthy eyes…then I look back at him. ‘Well, actually you can’t read because you have missed a huge amount of school…but…you are smart. I can tell’. ‘Yes, yes’ she responds quickly. ‘And…and I’m blind, you know…my Mom is working on that’.

I turn to address him directly. ‘Okay…’ he looks up. ‘I can’t read that passage’ he says…very close to tears. I take another deep breath. ‘You can read a lot of it. You can’. He shakes his head. ‘Everyone else in the whole class can read it except me’. I look at him directly and address her. ‘No…they really can’t’. She’s listening and drawing lines on the whiteboard. ‘Hey, can I have the purple marker?’ She reaches for my bag…

Here is a slice of testing mania. Picture if you will an overstuffed, overly warm second grade room where a number of teachers are passing out the first in a series of test booklets to overstressed and over wiggly kids.

I approach one desk where a little girl in pony tails and pink ribbons stares at me and then raises her hand. I do not know any of these children. We have all been thrown together in a cauldron of heat and data gathering. ‘What do you need?’ I ask rather impatiently. It’s hot. I’m generally irritated and I’m grasping more number 2 pencils than anyone has the right to expect me to hold.

She looks at me and asks, ‘Why are you so beautiful?’ Before I can respond, her twin sitting directly behind her chimes in immediately. ‘Why are you so flawless?’ I roll my eyes. It’s no sale…they still have to take the test. I was not born yesterday…

Whist! Who treads there on darkened coffee mug rim, this falling autumnal morn? Who glittered the edge of table and utensil…scattered orange orchard dust over the heated cream? Why…’tis an autumn sprite, tripping lightly over a sunbeam…plummeting headfirst toward the steaming drink, catching herself as she totters at drink’s edge. With a shake of cinnamon wings, she hovers furiously, breathes in coffee heat and sighs.

Who is she? This yellow wisp of air…this willow snippet? Whist!…she sprinkles a warning that sounds like bells. ‘I am a most discouraged neighbor of winter past, Mr. Jack Frost…unruly imp who never stops to breathe in raspberry chocolate or to nestle over hearth and home. He is crackly and rude while freezing my reddy orange beams and purpled plum air with buckets of white frosting…that old Mr. Jack’.

With a shrug of shoulder and a hint of lemon curly swirl, she flutters off…disappears into the long sunbeam so dappled through curtain’s lace.

Soon…closer now than ever…the creamed edges of this mug shall no longer bathe in auburn light and dappled salmon, for one has glimpsed the nose of the sprite and her dimpled eyes as she heads southward for a season. Somewhere, lies under the memory of golden leaves…her only trace…the diamond glitter kicked loose from dancing shoes and nutmeg tresses, shed while gloaming over hot buttered toast on a window’s ledge.

Shhh…does one hear his clattering paint bucket and his raspy yell? His white spattered ladder is seen…folding over the garden fence…too soon, too soon. So let us snuggle down one and all…under the mug of warmth…just a minute longer with a dollop of cream and a hint of a dream and a smattering of spritely yellow glitter, warmed and sparkled…and fading downward into brown…

Summation of my week thus far: overheard in a Kindergarten class…’I’ve got shark nails’ (meaning sharp). With a third grader…’Could we have a salami in Rochester?’ (meaning Tsunami)…although with this district, all things are possible. I read in a note from a small second grader…’Dear Teacher…I want to try to do my best because I want to be god’ (good)…a very tall order indeed. Things to think about on a busy Monday…