Beneath The Threshold

It’s dusk and outside my window the world is alive with the evening call of a hundred birds. Across the field outside my house their echoes dominate the landscape. This is our time, now, they say. As your day draws to a close a new world begins. Our world. A pheasant calls, and a blackbird sings, somewhere an owl hoots. Go to sleep. Rest your drama. And we will take back all of this until it’s your time to wake and return to business.

 This is paradise. Here in this moment. Another world, occupying the same space as ours. Interlaced with our politics and our drama, our civil engineering projects, our pandemics and our soap operas. A parallel dimension interwoven with our interest rates and our insurance certificates, our parking permits and our social etiquette. This is where trees grow. This is where the clouds float past, where rain falls and sun shines. This is where the deer graze and the seasons pass. The grass sways, the river flows, flowers bloom and fade. And all of them indifferent to our nonsense and our self importance. 

They’ve seen our like and they’ll see our like again. That oak at the end of the garden has lived a dozen of our generations. It’s seen it all and forgotten it all. It is home to squirrels and ivy, and birds and moss, it just is, and in being so we become insignificant in its shade. It doesn’t care about our posturing, our heartbreak, our pride and our propaganda. It just is.

And as the trees become silhouettes and the sky turns a final shade of pink before submitting to night, I take a moment to listen on last time, to breathe in, and breathe out. This is where life is. Not in our offices, our KPIs and our profit margins. It’s here, and we’re lucky to be alive.