Wind-Chime

Wind-Chime A small and luminal perfection, guttering spark of a flock of sparrows, thrum of wings lifting from cypresses, the silence as they fall back into windblown trees, furl, unfurl, a music perhaps inconsequential but one the world can't stop listening to. "Pain is what I've learned there is," said the ex-cop, "and behind much excess more pain." She would know. Yesterday, though, those birds and the moving branches of trees. Today, an unexpectedly sweet apple, a walk through the spring-like warmth of the last day of the year, mountains silver-blue as wings. "I'm not lost," read the steel tag of the white mutt that followed me through the pasture. I never expect what saves me, beauty, grace, or perhaps best of all, the pure silliness of small perfections: Rosie's black tail arched over her back. —Katherine Smith 93 ...