While people all over the world chanted and prayed for a miracle, we stood in the woods with binoculars trained on a pair of bluebirds flitting from branch to branch, tiny chests puffed out in the chill morning air. And for those few moments, mud frozen beneath our feet and not a single golden leaf stirring on the beech tree, I did not think about a virus entering my body after turning a doorknob or shaking someone’s hand or touching my own face. It was as if those two bluebirds became parts of us freed at last from worry — our tufted, lighter bodies now lifting higher and higher, like words meant for whatever god might still be listening.