Jones in the morning

The day is fresh and clean, so much lighter than yesterday.

Jones is four now, and the clouds are high in the sky. White against blue, they are great island chains in an unknown ocean. They move quickly, shifting, rolling past the fading moon.

Walking up the sidewalk, a lollipop in his mouth, Jones is telling me that bees are not allowed to live at daycare. He interrupts himself to wave and say hi to a bird.

His tiny, perfect voice.

“Hi, bird, hi!”

And then it is on to ants. He squats down each time he sees one, gets as close to eye level as possible. He is on his hands and knees now, waving at the ant, “Hello, are you a friendly ant?!” It doesn’t really matter if it’s a friendly ant or not, Jones will try to pick him up. “Look daddy, this one misses his mommy and died on a bush.” Such careful attention stretches our walk, stretches time into something else, and we will not be getting to daycare until a little later this morning.

Jones, some form of god, destroyer and preserver of ants, friend to birds, reaching out to everything that lives. Sometimes bringing thunder, sometimes bringing light. How does it all work? How does one know they are doing good in this world? A teen rides her bike slowly down the sidewalk, and just before she passes us, unseen sparrows, startled, rise up from tall grass–every one thing touching every other thing.