songbird you leave the nest at eleven days
that’s how things always begin here
every life so precious so close to
peril fallen bird wet in the grass
has the evening come too soon too cold
a prayer is what i am offering you that and this
not so new shirt i will use to cover you dry you
in these last and fast falling minutes of day
every thing i know about being a mother is here now
my prayer is that your mother does not stray
i am well versed in her work my yard her nest
what i do for my own daughter call it matriarchal
call it independence call it nature call it mothering
so i bring you this old shirt one i may have
used but never needed like now wrap you
watch your sibling there at the edge
of the lawn testing his wings the mother bird
is not in joyful throat of morning no singing
she chitters from bush to bush my flowers
bloom yellow as her breast
i built this alone i carry the weight of
my life completely mine this
is what prayer is little bird flightless
in my hands offered back to its mother here
i say i know i know it’s a whisper
but empathy is my gift call it that
i understand what it is to worry this
need to protect i give her back to you mother songbird
this baby bird on the cusp of flight laying here
in a shirt for a nest leave you to your mother
the dusk to a prayer that despair not win not now
not today the evening is too calm for loss so
may us mothers lend each other for now
and by example this grace
