In the Pause

In the pause between breaths, the world softens to listening— a cardinal perches, his red chest a small flame against white birch bark, and even the wind holds still.

We forget how to be quiet, how the silence speaks louder than any confession. It pools in the corners where we don't look, in the spaces between words.

But here, in this moment, the cardinal sings once, twice, and the listening becomes tangible— a thread spun from emptiness, connecting us to what we've forgotten.