The Birds Were Speaking First

By Phoenix Fateweaver

I started carrying a small notebook on my morning walks after a Painted Bunting landed close enough that I forgot to breathe. I did not know what to do with a moment like that, so I sketched the bird and left it at that. Then this essay found me, on the old Sufi idea that birds have a language and that listening is the practice itself. Twenty-six quiet minutes on the mystics who never treated a bird as background noise. I have been walking slower since, and taking notes.