Red Against the Blue of Winter

I stopped because I saw this beautiful male Northern Cardinal shining through the stark, bare branches against a grey Ohio sky.

What held me was the contrast of color, life and cycle. The red of the bird against the blue of winter. The branches feel dormant and stripped down, but the cardinal is completely alive inside them.

Cardinals can carry all of those meanings at once. A loved one still being present. Hope and renewal. Life enduring through the cold. That flash of red feels like a reminder that even when everything looks bare and quiet, life is still there.