Remember the way the first sounds of spring filled you, the time you and your mother followed a cacophonous sound. You peered through dried stalks of corn to find flocks of sandhill cranes; fields upon fields of them. You had never seen a sandhill crane before, let alone the hundreds that gathered that day.

The noise and sight was enormous. It excited you. In this place you had wandered countless times, you wondered how you could have missed them before.

You weren’t aware: This was the first time the cranes had returned in generations to that exact place, once meadow, now farmland, and at the tender, dark earth of it, a single blade of grass beckoned the wind patterns to change, the earth to tilt, and the cranes to enter into a longing, a familiar comfort and remembrance of their ancestral home. They acted on the wild will of their hearts and flew the distance to be there, all at once.

You weren’t aware that each of the hundreds of cranes that stood before you represented a miracle of God.

You weren’t aware that the first sounds of spring and life that came from every direction existed only for you hear.

You weren’t aware that a blade of grass held the vast memory of a forgotten meadow.

You weren’t aware that it is this kind of innocence that brought you home to yourself, once again and all at once.

You weren’t aware.