The Flight of the Blackbirds: A Message to An Empty Nest

by KayBoulware-Miller
(Flemington, NJ)

A blanket of emptiness darkened the windows of her solitary room. She was startled, but expectant of the shadowy arrival of a lingering loneliness that, moments before, she had divined would visit her. It was an arrival that would wail from the absence of the soothing sounds and sweet scents of those whom she loved best.

She resisted the petrifying darkness of the windows that was defeating the comforts of her self-pity. The plundering darkness indeed did conquer her, but it did not enslave her. It forced a reckoning that her life was hers, to watch over and to arm for the realities of her existence.

It was then, that she opened her eyes and saw a flock of migratory blackbirds jettisoning from the darkened windows of her room on which they had perched to serve as a temporary respite in their determined flight south to security and peace and, ultimately, giving welcome to the sunlight.

The flight of the blackbirds was a message to her. After all, she, like the black birds, would embark on a flight to a place of security and peace, a flight to those whom she loved best.

Kay Boulware-Miller