Short poems and a wandering mind. Life and love in the twinkle of a bird's eye.
"Evening light fits the cove rock, a mouthful of gold. Cormorant bathes in amber, deeply still..."
#29 non-fiction, #38 poetry. #5 haiku! These are in lots of differ...
Baby beaks come to the garden, with soft downy feathers, and exhausted parents. Blackbirds introduce their young on the first day out. They hop the babies up the path and nod at the fledgling and at me. I have to nod back to accept the job.
First-day blackbird babies sit nest-shaped, tails still up behind them, beaks too big for little heads sinking into tired shoulders. They watch the sky, and drift off. Sun warms. Eyes close. They sit where they are put, in full view of parents, and of crows. That's why I have to watch them.
Second week babies do not stay where they are put, which is why I have to watch them. They play with dock leaves and get gluey beaks from slugs, which they fling through the air in frustration. Their parents still feed them.
None of them can swallow a grape.
Daddy bird put a fledgling in profile, squawking and wide-mouthed. With perfect timing, he posted a grape in the beak. He looked at me, and we watched it bounce back out again! Half a grape bounced back too and the squawking continued, with little wing flutters. We experimented until I learned that half of a quarter of a peeled grape could be gulped down, and won us seconds of silence.
Baby is growing. He showed me how to catch a worm last week. He melodramatically listened under a dock leaf, pecked and brought it squiggling to me, leaving it at a favoured stone by my feet.
I love him.
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