City forest

‎4 am, the middle of the city is as silent as it can get. The air is warm, even though it's january. I can hear, far from my building, the low, ominous rumble of a city bus; stopping and starting at corners and kiosks, complaining and empty. My sleep dumb mind is searching for reasons to stay awake....or slip back into the nest of sleep. Sleep wins, and the next thing I hear, as I surface again, is the morning call of city birds, chirping and singing with a sense of abandon one rarely hears in this place of deep cement and brick canyons. I am at once charmed. My happy bell starts to chime and wakefulness takes hold. I lay there thinking about those birds who mistakenly think they live in a protected, warm forest of plentiful nesting spots and safety from storms. The parking garage birds. Sometimes one even lands on my windowsill and blesses me with a private aria.

..Petitions of the Heart......The Mountain.

Day turned to night and night to day.  And still he sat upon the mountain.
     "What does he hope to discover?"  thought the angel who sat by his side, unseen by the man.
"Does he know that there are endless endings?"
     "Does he know that he is master of his own fate?"
"Does he think the answer will show itself to him in some sort of magical way?"

The man sighed and the angel relaxed and looked out to the horizon where the man was staring.
   "Dear God," spoke the man.  The angel said Amen and turned to the man to hear what he was going to say to God.
"I am only a man," he paused and cleared his throat.  "I thought that what I was doing was right and so I continued to do it.  And now I am suddenly older and I am no longer sure.  I thought I had all the answers to all the questions.  But now I have questions for which my usual method of finding answers doesn't work.  My patterns are so tightly formed.  I don't know how to get beyond this point.  I am asking for something from you."

The angel nodded his head.  "Good," he thought, "This man really does know the answers; time will help him to see.  Time, faith and truth."

The angel wrapped his wing around the man and the man felt its warmth.  And a gentle thought entered his mind, "Follow your heart.  Wherever it takes you is the right place."

And the sun broke through the clouds and the man left the mountain.