It's Still Life

The Liturgy for Driftthaw
— The Unhurried Awakening

I. Of Lukewarm
It arrives not as storm, nor sun,
but as a space-heater’s hum against a cold wall,
a pigeon bathing in December rain as if it were holy water,
a mind fogged by sameness,
a heart pacing in a room too small for its dreams.
Driftthaw is the colour of a spirit
beginning to thaw before the weather does.
Winter-weary, but not despairing;
humorous, but under a blanket of fatigue.

II. Of Moods Between Moods
Not melancholy.
Not joy.
Liminal tiredness —
the kind that makes a dripping gutter
sound like a whispered secret,
that turns an empty fridge into a metaphor,
that watches a crow mutter on the fence
until suddenly you know:
It is time to go somewhere.

III. Of Elsewhere
A soft longing dressed as practicality.
A traveller’s heart wrapped in a wool cardigan.
Elbows propped on a cold table,
chin in hands,
gazing at a pigeon offering itself to the rain,
and thinking:
Yes.
This.
A baptism by cold water,
a sign disguised as feathers and grey sky,
a whisper toward elsewhere.

IV. Alignment
Air touched by rain.
Warmth borrowed from electricity.
Feathered thoughts rising.
This is alchemy.
This is Driftthaw:
not fire, not ice,
but the slow seep of possibility
through the cracks.

V. The Crow’s Disapproval
He clacks his beak on the windowpane,
feathers fluffed against the damp,
and squints at you:
“Colombia? Really?
You haven’t even packed yet.”
But his eyes gleam.
He has always understood
your sacred madness —
the part of you that thaws
faster than the world allows.

VI. The Reveal
May restlessness be gentle.
May a pigeon in the rain
remind you what is normal.
And may you listen
to what your heart
has already decided.