Four Season Song
(for Panda)
I woke before the clock
to a sun that felt honest—
bright but edged in winter’s cool breath.
Light slipped through prisms in the living room,
casting small galaxies against quiet walls,
orbs of violet and flame
drifting over yesterday’s dust.
On the porch railing
birds gathered like old philosophers—
blue flash, gray flicker,
squirrels balancing like tightrope dancers of the pine—
all circling the purple plate
nailed to tired wood,
unsalted peanuts stacked
for a breakfast in the round.
A communion of claws and wings.
Today I raised the Choose Love flag—
rescued from a Goodwill rack—
and let it speak into the street.
Peace signs catching wind,
small declarations against the long shadow
that’s settled over this country—
that dry, aching absence of empathy
that hums like a low storm cloud.
Choosing love is not naive.
It is defiance.
It is the only bridge that doesn’t burn.
After hanging new prints—
fresh ink, new stories pinned to the walls—
I opened the door to morning
and lifted the wooden flute to my lips.
The notes wandered outward,
curious as sunlight.
Blue Jays came.
Crows tilted their black crowns.
They listened.
And suddenly I was back by the ocean—
Panda beside me in the courtyard,
feeding Steller’s Jays near the salt air,
our feet on agates and sea-polished treasures,
stones we gathered like prayers
for the garden.
The Pacific breathing.
Four seasons braided into one long song.
Bear love is forever love.
I’ve missed that rhythm.
The way spring forgives winter.
The way summer leans into autumn.
The way nothing truly leaves—
it only turns.
Like the seasons,
I have never given up on you.
Not on kindness.
Not on love.
And somewhere—
wherever you stand beneath your own sky—
I like to believe
my flute’s thin ribbon of sound
still finds you.
Still hums low
in your chest.
Still beats
in time
with your heart.
-Bearz
02.14.26