An April Fool in January

Spring came early this year, a couple days or so, or I’m an April fool in the waning days of January. Spring normally arrives in February around here. All my neighbors are about, the titmouse nesters in the fur pine right from my balcony, no larger than a fur ball on a twig of fur balls makes for excellent camouflage, and an endless stream of ants for breakfast for the visiting mourning doves found on a branch below. The doves nest around the corner, left of my kitchen window in the secure cover of a towering cedar tree. The crow family nest across the yard in the tall king cypress facing west towards the sea, and have been there for 15 years, as long as I’ve been around, in fact, all have. But, no bird family nest in the magnolia tree right before me where twice I’ve seen red tail hawks take doves. The hawks feed on house wrens nesting in the mulberry bushes that run along the borders of this square block long complex, above the cat line, and doves when they can catch one, or pigeons by the beach, yum. But, not today. Today hawks sleep and butterflies feast, and the warm breeze that smells like summer and signals the coming of an early spring is a welcome surprise and total mystery coming from somewhere.









Alan (Al) Simmons lives on the Island of Alameda off the coast from Oakland, California.  He has recently appeared in Forage, Your Impossible Voice, Creating Chaos, Echo Literary Review, and Placeholder Magazine, among others.  www.simmonsink.blogspot.com