Mother Bird

There once was a Mother bird.

A very, very good Mother bird.

Every day and every season, 

with every new Baby bird,

the Mother bird looked at them with pride 

and knew that she was a good Mother bird.

And every Baby bird became a big, big bird

and flew away from her nest for the last time. 

But the Mother bird never knew it was the last time 

until they never came back like they did the last, last time.

And every time the good Mother bird would look 

at her empty nest and ask herself, 

“Who will I feed?

Whose little face will be the first and last thing i see?

Who will share every lovely sunrise and desolate sunset with me?”  

But with every Spring there came new Baby birds.

And the good good Mother bird was too busy to ask herself questions,

and devoted her days to singing to her Baby Baby birds.

But as more and more Springs went by,

the Mother bird noticed her pale blue Eggs, she laid less and less.  

And with each passing Spring she was busy less and less.

And although she had more time, she slept less and less.

And then one Spring time the Mother bird found she had only laid one pale blue Egg.

And suddenly she could not bring herself to leave her nest,

for ants could infest!

Or circling, coiling snakes who she detests!

Wind could bring unrest!

And as the Mother bird sat on her warm little Egg

and shivered in the cooling night,

she remembered when she was once so so small and so so frail

and would look up at the pinpricks of stars in the neverending Dark yawning wide.

And she wondered when that Dark would get it over with and swallow her down in one big bite. 

But then blessed morning broke

and the Mother bird heard a tip, tip, tap.

And from her pale blue Egg a quivering Baby burst.

And the Mother bird was once again too busy to feel her fright in the night

in an endless parade of feeding and singing and grooming and feeding again. 

One day, as the green leaves began to be laced with gold,

the Mother bird was grooming her precious little Baby and his precious little wings

when she found herself pulling feathers and pulling feathers until his body were reddened bare.

“How strange and how sweet!” 

thought the Mother bird

“Why, he looks just as he did when he first broke free from his Egg!

I’ll nuzzle him under my downy chest until his feathers are all grown again!”

And the Mother bird continued to sleep soundly through the night.

For who but a very, very good Mother bird would take care of such a pitiful thing?

And so the days and nights passed,

but somehow the Baby bird’s feathers never got a chance to grow back. 

Then one night as the Mother bird and her Baby bird lay asleep in their nest,

the Mother bird woke with a start

and looked up into the neverending Dark.

But instead of the pinpricks of stars she saw two glowing eyes, 

so so wicked and so so amber bright.

A Racoon! With clever hands and a bandit’s mask leering down at them from on high.

 When the Racoon saw the Mother bird awake her drooling lips pulled back in a smile.

And the Mother bird quaked at the sight of that bristling yellowed maw. 

“How good of you, Mother bird

to make a Baby so big and so tender. 

The world grows cold and its creatures grow thin

And I have grown so so Hungry!”

purred the Raccoon. 

“Away! Away! You wicked beast!”

cried the Mother bird.

“I say my Baby is not for a scavenger such as you!”

“And I say you are unkind!

Mother to Mother, how can you deny me?

You see my belly swelling full of Kits.

Already they turn their appetites on my wasting body!”

“Away! Away! You pillager! You crook!

Do you think my labors should be wasted on you?

Away!”

“But what choice do you have, Mother bird?

The night has come and she is so very very hungry!”

And with that the Raccoon pounced and the Mother bird flew 

and she shrieked for her Baby to follow her.

But as she fled into the neverending Dark, 

she heard a terrible crunch and didn’t hear a single cry 

and she remembered that her sweet sweet Baby had no feathers 

and so he could not, he would not fly into the night. 

And the Mother bird was unable to turn back and see what she had lost 

and so she kept flying out into the blessed blessed dark 

And for once she hoped it would never end.