Harbingers

As I reluctantly sat down to write this morning, I glanced out the kitchen window and noticed an ice sculpture rising from a frozen pond of water in the bird bath. Though open to interpretation, I proclaim it to look like a glass bird, its wings folded meekly behind, perched on the bath water – its delicately shaped head, dovelike, looking away from me and toward the bush nearby.  Only after taking the picture did I notice the real-life yellow rumped warbler on a branch to the left, posing either in the same befuddlement as I, or in pride and presentation of his secret artistry -- which one?  I traipsed outside in the 20-degree temperatures, camera in hand, to investigate the apparition . . .

Some mystery of science was at play during the night or early morning hours, in which a bit of water rose up from the birdbath and began to freeze, and then another drop or two followed (pushing upward?), and that began to freeze – I suppose that’s the way it happened. I don’t see any reasonable source from above that might have dropped water down on the frozen surface in order to create this ice sculpture.  

The science of it eludes me; I can’t begin to comprehend, much less explain how such things happen. I secretly resort to a mystic explanation – though I think mysticism can have reasonable, scientific explanations without being minimized or disqualified in its significance to the individual.  Am I the only person who “sees” the shape of a perched bird rising from the birdbath?

I like to think that science and living nature and mysticism and everything understood and not understood have come together today to provide this odd little shape of a perched glass bird in my birdbath. And – call me crazy if you will – but I like to think that the shape is there as a gift from the birds, their way of saying thank you for feeding us through all these frozen, snowy weeks so that we could survive to be here at our traditional mating time in the middle of February.  The temperature will rise to nearly 50 degrees today, and so this bird shaped ice sculpture will be gone by the time I finish my daily writing. Already, I look out the window (a few hours later) and notice that the disc of water in the birdbath has begun to melt and float within itself -- causing the glass bird to rotate leftward, rightward, leftward -- like a watchtower guard . . . 

I also like to think that this “apparition” is a harbinger of writing ideas to come -- maybe a herald to corroborate the message in my daily horoscope which I read in the newspaper today:
“A creative idea you put to rest should be reinstated. If your intentions are honorable, you can start anew.”