I committed an unwanted sin.
The barnswallows made me do it.
Devil birds. They nest
in the eaves of my front porch.
Or they try to nest.
I knock their nests down as soon as I see them start building them.
We fight about it every year.
We put bushes in to give the birds a place to nest in peace,
or what passes for peace in a human world on fire and iced
at the same time.
You have to draw your lines with nature.
But nature also draws lines with you
and me. This year, I waited too long to knock it down.
But I knocked it down anyway.
The eggs broke on the concrete step.
I felt immediately cursed, sorrowful, penitent.
I looked for one of the nestbuilders
but they were nowhere to be seen
or heard.
The poem is always an apology.
Another bird built a nest in the bush outside my office window.
Every day, all day, while the Sun is up,
she lands on the sill and shows me what she caught for her babies.
Grubs and worms, and I think a cricket.
She's a stone killer.
And she feeds those babies.
I hear them crying like high pitch ship whistles
and I understand that they are singing
praises for that wonderful hovering mother
bringing them all this fulfilling nourishment,
keeping them safe for as long as she can
or he can.
The shadow of a loving parent, moving on
because moving backwards isn't an option.
I am the penitent witness,
forced to find the song
in their hungry cries.