A Cowboy, a Bird, and a Cold Winter Night

As the winter breeze passed through the window, I shivered, shattering my sleep. The windows had been covered by the cold, lightly frozen by the night. They seemed fragile, as if about to break any second now. I had left them open by mistake, just enough for a leaf to land on my cheek––a gentle caress of sorts, like a child feeling her mother’s palm. I raised the leaf from my face and observed it with awe, as if the last wonder of the world remained between my fingers. I had to cherish it. My palm and the leaf suddenly felt identical, veins running through both like rivers, our fingerprints unique. Hiding below the white sheets, I recalled a dream from when I was a child.

A figure dressed in a black suit, a cowboy hat on his head, his voice a defined melody which sounded like black coffee. We stood on a desert surrounded by mountains, no trees or life around us. I still cannot bring back the face of the figure. I was running from something––I never really knew what, but I knew I was afraid. Whenever I finally thought I had found a peaceful hiding spot beneath a rock, the figure would appear. He didn’t want to hurt me, but his words were more terrifying than anything.

He spoke in a calm, haunting voice.

“Why do you keep running?”

I never answered. I felt the smile on his face each time I kept quiet, and each time, he would nod slowly and say, “You were not made for flight, and no prayers will summon wings. Yet each step you take has its own quiet grace. The bird will never outrun you, just as you will never outfly the bird”

He seldom said anything more and I never really knew what he meant, but I always woke up afraid. As if his words were the bread of angels––an unattainable dream, I could only recall, never grasp in whole. The angels had all: eternity and heaven and grace. Still, they envied the mortals for their bread. The opportunity to taste different flavors as they slowly dissolved in their mouths, sensations only left for those fearing death.

Over time, the suited cowboy stopped appearing in my dreams, but his words remained engraved in my memory. Now that I looked at the leaf in my palm, it seemed fragile yet calm.

It had come from a windy winter darkness, and now seemed to be enjoying the warmth of the room, the stillness of the world. It had been harbored in Alexandria after years of travel. I gently posed the leaf on a table next to my bed and closed my eyes, in hopes of summoning sleep once again.

That night, I dreamt of the cowboy once more, for the first time in so long. I was still frightened, but I did not run. The figure in the black suit appeared in front of me, still no face, still the same voice. In his hands, the leaf appeared.

He spoke in a whisper. A warm tone, like a summer afternoon: “The leaf descends, the bird ascends, and you transcend. These are three shapes of the same quiet faith.”

In the morning when I woke, the leaf was gone. But I knew it was in good hands, of the figure in a suit, a cowboy hat on his head, his voice like black coffee, his words like a thread, from his heart to my head.

Cover Image: Peach Blossom and Dove. Isen’n Hoin Eishin (Japanese, 1775-1828)