A Flash of Scarlet

This is an entry for my Quintet writing group's "Bird" project:


I am visited by cardinals this year. They have always been one of my favorite birds, not the least reason being you can often see them in this part of Michigan in the winter and that spot of scarlet in a desolate landscape is like a bright treat to the eye. But another reason I love them is that you seldom see them alone, they nearly always have their mate near by.

This past April I was writing a new poem for every even day in the month and I was also spending a lot of time with my critically ill mother in what would turn out to be the last month of her life. One day I sat alone at her kitchen table while she slept in her bedroom a few feet away. I had scraps of paper on the table before me on which I was scribbling beginnings of a few poems.

Outside her window I spotted a flash of red from the corner of my eye. On the branches of the tree near the house was a pair of cardinals. I don’t know why but, as I watched them flit about, for some reason they reminded me of my parents.

Even though my father had been gone 21 years at this point, when he was alive he and my mother had a close bond dating back to when they were 16-years-old. She was only 58 when he died, still a relatively young woman, but for the rest of her life there was never any other mate for her.

We were still in a hopeful stage at this point, still trying to believe there was a chance she would overcome this illness. But as I sat at that table, in that quiet house with those bits of paper before me, a little thought crept unbidden into the forefront of my mind. I wondered if this pair of cardinals appearing to me now was a sign that Mom was nearing the time she and Dad would rejoin each other.

I wrote this poem:

Red Devotion
There is a cardinal couple
in the tree outside the window.
He flits about much more than she,
hopping from branch to branch,
but they are never very far apart.

When he decides to fly off,
she follows shortly after.
An old married couple
loath to be apart.
Bright red devotion.


My mother died on a Saturday a little after midnight on May 1. Now, in late July and the beginning of August, a cardinal has visited again, only this time it’s at my home and it is the female alone. Each time I see her I go to the window and search in vain for her partner somewhere in the branches nearby.

I believe in signs and I believe that these visits from a poor widow cardinal are from my mother. Has she come back to check on me? To see how I’m doing? I’m not sure how to answer that; how to reassure this tiny messenger. Certainly it has been hard, but it’s supposed to be difficult to lose someone you love very much. I take comfort from the idea that she is with my father and that someday I will see them again.

So, it’s time to fly Mom. It may take a while, but I’ll be fine.
Go and rejoin Dad. You’ve waited long enough.


Denise Kalin Tackett
August 10, 2010