Elisabeth watches the hoopoes

They should have left long ago, but they are still here. I check every morning, though the light is weak in the courtyard, my fingers stiff and the cold latch awkward. And every morning, they are there, sitting up on the branch, their feathered crests like crowns bright in the wintering daylight. I wonder if they always stay and if I haven’t noticed. Last winter, I stayed inside, barely wanting to move in case, well, just in case. I felt too old for all that growth, unready, unsteady and Zechariah was silent, so I suppose I also felt alone. The birds might have helped, had I noticed them.

My mother loved these birds, and she would never listen when my father said they were unlucky. “King Solomon’s favorites,” she’d crow. “Confidants of the king and that shows wisdom.” But these ones in the garden can’t be wise, lingering long into the winter like this. The mornings are cold now, and it takes until the afternoon for the sun to come into the courtyard.

But then, I take the boy outside to play under the tree, sitting him up on the warmed stones where we can watch the birds. They have their nest in a hole in the wall and they come and go over our heads. There are two of them, and I’m never sure which I am seeing; they are so similar. Their call makes the boy laugh. Hoo-hoo-poe, hoo-hoo-poo. Then their wings are a wheel of black and white, and he beams like he’s seeing angels and claps his hands. He is growing so quickly now. Already pulling himself up to his feet, pushing the chair across the room. They say that boys are slow to walk, but not my boy. I shouldn’t speak that aloud. It isn’t fair to compare. But he is bright and we are blessed.

Mary’s song

My thoughts are with my cousin now. She must be coming close. I wanted to be there for her, but Zechariah said it was proper to leave them be. The girl was with us long enough, he said, and there was enough talk. He doesn’t understand. Yet perhaps it is all for the best. They’ve had to travel for this census, and, in the end, I wouldn’t have been able to travel with them.

I hope she has others around her when it is her time. I had my helpers, and the midwife, too, a girl with strong arms to hold me as I quaked into that long night. She rubbed my back and helped me to sing, a low and calling melody so that he would know that the world was ready to make space for him, too. I wonder who will sing with Mary.

My mother taught me that the hoopoes are loved in Egypt, even if the priests here don’t fancy them. She said they lay 12 eggs each year, small, round and blue like scraps of the sky itself, smuggled down and nurtured until the chicks can push into tender life, grow thick with feather and fly away. I think she loved them because they are beautiful. Maybe that is enough. 

This story first appeared in Winter: Liturgical Resources for November, December and January, edited by Ruth Burgess, Wild Goose Publications, Iona Books, 2016.