My winter companion

 

She was sitting in an orange children’s bathtub underneath my frontdoor steps. Amidst twigs and dead leaves that had gathered in there. At first sight just another dead leaf. Until she opened her wings, and these glorious colours flashed at me with white-blue light. Something in the eye sort of rippled, and then flashed … I was impressed and, afraid she might not live through the cold, I took in the whole bath tub and put it at my bedroom door. There she sat all winter, flashing at me each time I passed her. I began to cherish her as a metaphor:

the heavenly design cleverly hidden among the rubble of our daily lives