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Sycamore

We packed up our apartment in Dublin in December, and moved to the outskirts of Limerick, two hours away. We made jokes about our new suburban life, peered through the windows cynically. Over the following months, we marveled that so little could happen in a place with so many houses. I felt like life was harder to notice here - you really had to squint to see it. The sycamore tree in our back garden teemed with life. Early on, we bought a plastic bird feeder and every week thereafter I dutifully dropped two bags of wild bird seed into my trolley. I came to recognise starlings, sparrows, chaffinches, blue tits, doves, crows, blackbirds, even - twice - a minuscule wren. One magpie (sorrow); sometimes two (joy). In January, when our budgie died, we buried him between the roots. In March, we pinned tufts of our dog's winter coat to the branches and watched in delight as it was claimed as nest material. When the tree was bare, our guests would watch patiently from the neighbours' w...
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June

I wasn't there the day the robin flew into the kitchen and landed on my grandfather's cap. The story was told many times in the following days as we circled his bedside, and at his funeral. For me, this strange omen only deepened the sense of mythology that hovered at the edges of our last few days with him, in the stories of years past and the songs he sang with my father. After June, the robin began appearing everywhere: on each walk through the woods, on tea towels and milk jugs. A gift shop in the town nearby sold framed models made from tiny stones painted red, with twig legs. Come December I saw him on wrapping paper and Christmas cards. Once, after the weekly food shop, there he was, planted on the zebra stripes that crossed the car park. Did I imagine that we looked at each other, both of us a bit stunned: fancy seeing you here? A robin inside the house is said to be a harbinger of death; these days, seeing a robin feels like an invitation to be still. I watch him guard...
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Location: Limerick, Ireland
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