17. Birdsounds

I can only think in fragments.

The smell of rain on warm pavement, on earth I can’t see. The heaviness that precedes it, a mix of cloud cover and the lingering scent of jasmine. The reacquaintance with an observation as old as you are; a sense memory stored young. Of course, you think, the smell of the first spring rain. 

I am pure reaction. I react to smells and colours like a child might, like mine is too young for. I try to give these things to him anyway, the things I feel. Is it for him, I wonder, or is it for me - a chance to feel anew. 

I notice the trees when I walk without him, just before the rain hits. Ripe with red bottlebrush and dripping with upside down birds. Miners and lorikeets. How lucky I feel, back at home now, to sit in the quiet bathroom and notice the bird sounds.

The frogmouth came back, we think. We hear its sad pulse at night. I hope it stays this time.