Obviously Birds don’t keep calendars like us hectic humans do instead they sense shifting seasons and take appropriate action.

They have mastered a skill we haven’t possessed for generations: the ability to read the sky. We hardly ever look up.

And though Birds don’t mark occasions like birthdays, anniversaries…there is one day the Birds talk about often.

It was the one day when none of man’s noisy polluting air machines thundered across the sky, shattering silence and disrupting the calm snail’s pace of clouds. It was a warm day, still on the heels of Summer, a great clear day for flying.

Birds have become so used to seeing the noisy metal creatures that to not see them, hear them, feel the warmth of their engines’ wake…what a shock. The humans’ calendar called that day September 11, 2001 but to the Birds, it was a rare day of opportunity.

They once again reclaimed the sky, (didn’t the air seem cleaner?) in fact for many days. Uncertain how long it would last they unfurled wings and coasted on soft breezes, ecstatic to not have to share the sky. Eventually that time, no matter how sweet came to an end.

The metal birds once again populated and dominated the sky. The Birds had to learn how to begrudgingly share…again. Seasons came and went, yet another day like that never came again.

And yet The Birds refuse to forget.

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Also published on Medium.