Bird Droppings March 7, 2012A difficult journey “Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.” Henry Van Dyke I was visiting with my mothe…

[Frank Bird III]

Bird Droppings March 7, 2012
A difficult journey

“Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.” Henry Van Dyke

I was visiting with my mother Monday evening and I walked by my fathers and brothers grave site or I should say stood by recalling the day I was called from work almost sixteen years ago that my brother had passed away during the night. I looked about the hillside where he was buried and now my father as well. The farm had been home to many families over the years. Most recently a family of share croppers who for nearly sixty years tilled the land planting cotton and also running a dairy farm for a local land baron and financier. He too has passed away and left his name on a local church gym and road signs around the county.
As I looked out at now soccer fields and houses where not too many years ago boll weevils were poisoned and mules driven along furrows plowing terraces in an effort to keep what remaining top soil in place I saw a crow land in an old cedar tree. I walked over and watched the crow for a few minutes and recalled the cedar trees six or so in a row. Traditionally in Georgia where you find a row of cedar trees there was once an old fence line. This particular row I knew well for I had taken done the old rusty fence many years ago that ran along through them.
I wanted to sit a moment at my brother’s grave site as I thought back several years to a similar time when I was waiting for my father to come home from the hospital sitting in this exact spot. As I was sitting and wondering at all that had happened in the sixteen years since. What journeys had I been on? As I thought I glanced over at several burial markers from before the civil war from a family that had lived on this land so many years ago. Little granite houses literally fashioned from slabs of rock into body sized houses four could still be seen through the thicket of old honey suckle vines and sumac stalks.
I was thinking back to days when my children nieces and nephews made the mosaics that to lay on my brother’s grave each of my mother’s grandchildren made a section fashioning their ideas in to a mosaic of tiles and pieces of glass. There were several music notes on one, an ibis on another, flowers on several, an art design with a heart and arrows coming from it on another. I thought it would be great to have a guide book explaining each piece each color and tile to know why and where and who placed each one.
I received an email from a dear friend in Pennsylvania many days back responding to a dropping from a few days or so ago. She added a thought - "The past cannot be changed but the future is whatever you want it to be". She was not sure where it came from I did a search this morning and came up with, unknown author. But as I looked and wondered about our own mosaics in life my own in particular, what road was I on where was I going. Would one day I look back and see the tiles in place in my own life and try and recall why and where and how a most difficult journey it has been.
I recall days I would have wished on no one and am sorry I myself lived but I wonder. I went out earlier and watched the moon faint behind a bank of clouds slowly moving across the morning darkness. It was so quiet nearly silent as I walked around this morning with only a car in the distance to mark civilizations intrusion on my peace.

"We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make our world." Buddha

I wonder about this as I look back on a day or two. What if we wander from our thoughts drift astray for a moment or two does our world change manipulated by where we are at the time?

"Things do not change; we change." Henry David Thoreau

It has been a week of questions of trying to seek answers within questions within absolutes that are obsolete wondering if and trying to find which pathway is easier to tread.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." Mark Twain

Through my life I have made choices in despair many times rather than from exhilaration on some occasions. As I sat thinking wondering reading Twain’s words it caught me so often complacency ties us in, cast off the bowlines, and explore, dream, and discover as Twain so eloquently stated. I have always been a searcher traveling through this life exploring the myriads of trails and pathways. I am always looking, always exploring, wondering, talking, asking questions, and seeking answers to questions without any answers, wearing out shoes as I travel. Many are the times I would walk bare foot rather than stop.
I recall a brief journey where literally I had to take off my shoes and in doing so learned several lessons. Number on do not break in new boots on a weeklong hike. Number two is that mole skin is a wonderful invention and third it will protect your feet. Your feet can be the difference between another journey and sitting down waiting. I have wandered today trying to resolve for myself issues that may never be resolved ideas that will perpetuate my soul for what time I have yet it is as Mark Twain stated, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do”. So everyone as you go take another step, search down another pathway, find a new trail in life, but just do not try and break in new boots as you go. Please keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your heart and always give thanks.
namaste
bird