What was up I didn’t know. But the morning of Carnival, when I was lighting those candles, these two mockingbirds, you see, they flew from the skies, rested on my porch, watched my hands they did. I looked at their bodies. So pretty, shaped like swollen arrows. To them I said, “Welcome.” Who these birds were, I did not know. But mockingbirds don’t fly up every day and watch me light candles, no. So I said to myself, Soliel Marie, something could be up. A breeze blew through. I sucked in as much of the clear wind as I could. I wanted it to sit in my body. Swirl through, find my heart and my bone, I told the breeze. The two mockingbirds right then, lifted wings through the air, them. Then I knew. I opened my mouth so the breeze could leave. Believe me, yes, I felt the sign was definite. Change was coming.
― Connie May Fowler, Sugar Cage