I'm Adeli Mone and this is The Slowdown.

Spring is here or it's coming, at least here in Kentucky.

The grasses are getting greener and the trees are starting to put on their big blasemey

shows.

It reminds me that things are ongoing.

That life is ongoing, the cycles of it, the continuity.

Right when I'm about to surrender to the dark edges of winter's bleakness, a couple

flowers come up, a couple of sunny days show up like old friends I haven't seen in ages.

And here I am, suddenly smiling as if maybe, just maybe, everything is going to be okay.

I think it's easier to just give up, to just give in to the doom and the fear that's

all around us.

But I don't like doing the easy thing.

I like earning my time on this planet.

Just the other day, all the birds of the feeder got terrified and flew off when a coopers

hawk cruised over us.

But right after he left, they all came back, willing to feast their little hearts out.

I want to be like those birds, willing to come back to pleasure when the shadow is

no longer circling above us.

Today's poem reminds us that even though there are so many worries, so many fears, we are

still here, still using our mouths to speak back to the world.

Still the meteor makes a shadow over home, by me he came.

One, a lonely bird asked me if it's over.

...