Hawk Eyes

I ask myself every so often – usually while in the throes of a headache or in a routine with little time for writing – whether I should give up on this project that creeps slower than I thought. That’s a serious question when so many more immediate or important needs loom over each day. Yesterday was that weighty kind of day when I sat at the morning table rather than writing at the morning table, not unusual of late . . .

I noticed a large hawk perched in the tree outside the window, at first just his tightly folded back side looming in my range – a foreboding figure cloaked in a dark spread of cape. Its head began to turn nearly 300 degrees from one side to the other, as I thought only owls could do; its head would turn to the right and continue over that right shoulder until its head faced over the left shoulder; and having done that, it would turn its head to the left and continue round until it was looking over the right shoulder – and after I had seen its beak and features from all these many angles, and it had sort of proven to me all that it could do with its limber neck, that is when it carefully turned its body around, as a tightrope walker might do, upon the branch to face me so that I could observe it front wise too – and there it remained for more than an hour. Its mode was not hunting but observation, sometimes directly at me in the window, sometimes at a squirrel obliviously eating nuts on the ground eight feet beneath the hawk’s talons, sometimes at a thing in the distance or nearby. I took many pictures, and His Majesty was not bothered in the least by my clicking and flashing and occasional bumps on the window pane – eyes like a hawk, as the saying goes – and so I knew this hawk was not oblivious to me, but somehow even wanted me to see it perched there on the branch like an answer to a prayer – for that’s what answers do, I thought, they just sit there, present themselves, don’t ask or deliberate or shift or fly away – they present themselves, as is, as are, as am. Take it or leave it. That’s how the hawk sat there.

I got up with trepidation and quiet to fetch my book, Animal Speak by Ted Andrews, which is about the meaning of various animal totems and sightings, the spiritual meaning for ourselves as we sight these creatures and interpret them in context of the circumstances or questions in our lives – and yes, the hawk waited for me; almost, I would say awaited my return, for I saw its eyes fix upon the window till I got there and sat down again – they are messengers, the book says, and they represent creative energy and a long range view of creative projects. They are also great protectors of that energy – certainly I saw its aspect of protection in that great dark cape it presented to me at the first sighting, as though showing me what massive wraps were at its disposal – that – and then of course the circular eye watch, like a beam of light from a lighthouse, to show me what kind of range it took to guard me. Then I thought about the stance it took – patience in observation – I kept thinking of that word, stance . . . was that it’s message?  And what about patience?

In this case, there really is a full circle (300 degrees, anyway) happy ending to the dark morning, as it began, because I started to write something I had been putting off for a long time, and finished more than I would have thought – through the clatter of other needs and voices at my side – a stance.  In the end, it was that hour long stance of patient observation that moved me . . .

Double Helix

Back from a three-day respite at the beach – a check-in with my favorite spot on earth, water flowing at my feet, footprints made and washed away almost before I had time to turn around to watch them last briefly. As usual, there is so much to write, but not much time for the written word . . . and like cherry picking when the tree is full, I begin by nibbling . . .

I awoke to the words of an Eric Clapton song, “If I could change the world . . . “ – But why? I no longer want to change the world. I always saw writing as my personal way to change the world. A noble goal, I once thought – but finally, off the hook, relieved that I don’t have to do that. Those footprints in the sand don’t have to last forever – after all.

This new insight may come from age and reality, but also prompted from a book which I avidly read on the beach as the waves tumbled to my feet – The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner, a book about the happiest and least happy places on this planet. I especially enjoyed reading, and re-reading, the chapter on Iceland because I’ve always been fascinated by everything Icelandic – its history, landscape, personality, lore – especially the sagas from a thousand years ago. Iceland is – and this is no shock to me but is meant to surprise the readers of Weiner’s book – Iceland is the happiest nation of people on this planet. The author has traveled the globe and discounted out the most suspected reasons for happiness: good weather, personal success, financial security, political stability, religiosity, ritual, etc. – and the answer comes that Icelandic people are happiest because of an inherent creative spirit that is not reserved for a few so-called successful artists, but a way of life for everyone.  

Weiner writes: “In Iceland, being a writer is pretty much the best thing you can be. Successful, struggling, published in books or only in your mind, it matters not. Icelanders adore their writers. Partly, this represents a kind of narcissism, since just about everyone in Iceland is a writer or poet. Taxi drivers, college professors, hotel clerks, fishermen. Everyone. Icelanders joke that one day they will erect a statue in the center of Reykjavik to honor the one Icelander who never wrote a poem. They’re still waiting for that person to be born.”

Icelanders write, but they also love to read what others have written – whether in published format or by the guy next door. “Better to go barefoot than without a book,” is an Icelandic saying. Reading and writing and telling stories -- also, music compositon and visual art -- is the Icelandic way of occupying the winter hours, most of which are shrouded in complete darkness for months at a time. No one is expected to become famous from their art, or to change the world, or to make millions of krona, or even to be recognized. Art is fun, to be enjoyed – and to be shared around the hearth or in the mead halls.  I guess we Westerners would call that unambitious.

Another noteworthy quality of the Icelanders is their high level of tolerance for the idiosyncrasies of others – their ancient heroes are the likes of Ref the Sly, Gunnlaug Wormtongue, Sarcastic Halli, and Thorstein Staff-Struck. Women were no less independent, the most famous being Gudrid the Far Traveler who is said to have crossed the Atlantic eight times and dubiously lost two or three husbands. She gave birth to her first son, Snorri, in what was to become America 500 years later, that is once the European man named Christopher Columbus made his “discovery” official.  In old age, she summed up her life's accomplishments by saying that Karlsefni (one of her husbands) told the tale of these voyages better than anyone else.

Icelanders expect failure – even applaud it – because that means a person has challenged the impossible. Failure, they say, is living proof that the goal was a mammoth one, one that took on the brutality of existence. That’s what they admire – the attitude of challenge and all the endless creative ways to accomplish a goal – and then, best of all, the stories about what happened.  

There were times on the beach last week when I deliberately walked a weave-through pattern to the footprints of those who had walked earlier that morning:  a man with a very high arch – a child about two or three years old – a flat footed person of short, husky stature – a large dog – our prints became woven together like a grand helix – and, there, I had added my strand too – and all lasting no longer than the time it takes to turn around and watch them fade.

4 HA-HA

As a remembrance of my mother who passed away two years ago this week, I made a batch of her famous “club sauce” which she always made in late August or early September as a way to use up the season’s crippled or twisted tomatoes still hanging on the vines – and to be enjoyed on meatloaf through the winter months or given as gifts to those who praised the vinegary-sweet-peppery concoction. Club sauce – my mother couldn’t remember who first handed out the recipe, but the name came from a lifelong "club" of hers that formed amongst six or seven young WWII brides who lived together in housing projects financed by the army while their husbands served time overseas. She used to say that she never laughed so much or so hard as that year before the war ended when this group of women banded together as sisters to teach each other the fundamentals of cooking and house tending – and in some cases, childbirth and child care – skills that would become the work of their lives once the war ended and their husbands returned safely home.

I had been thinking about her for a week as I stalked farmers markets to find the farmer who might have the right kind of leftover tomatoes at the right price – as well as the “18 long skinny hot red peppers” that her scanty, handwritten recipe called for. When all ingredients had been procured and the day came to make the club sauce, I first fixed a large pot of tea – and instantly felt her presence in the kitchen as a sort of guiding force in the making of it . . . some small voice told me I was being too heavy on the sugar, not heavy enough on the onions – something told me – though if it was her, I think she might have warned me about the juiciness of the tomatoes (and what I could have done to thicken it up a bit), and also how to “hotten it up” since the peppers I bought were not as fiery as the ones she used to grow . . .

. . . nevertheless, what yielded were 22 pints of jarred and labeled club sauce, arranged neatly on the kitchen counter just as she would have done after a long day of canning – to admire and enjoy the artistry of practical work for several days before taking it all to the fruit cellar for the winter. On one of these several days I happened to be driving home after a morning of errands when I looked in my rear view mirror and saw a car with a woman inside who looked so much like my mother that a wave of unsolicited comfort rolled through me. Intrigued, I glanced in the rear view mirror every few seconds to catch another glimpse of her familiar face, noticing that her headlights were shining brightly on this horrifically bright sunny day. That seemed odd, and I laughed to think about it – the only person on the road with brightly shining headlights on a sunny day. In a brief second, I took in her short, silvery grey hair that was smoothly trimmed and close to her head – she was always proud of her silver hair and the bit of natural wave it carried. The sun sparkled off her hair as it beat into her car window. On another glance I took in the heavily wrinkled lines that ran along either side of her face from her nose down to her mouth, forming brackets to her upper lip – I believe cosmetologists call those the nasolabial lines – and there’s not much that can be done about them. She always said they made her look “crabby.” Another glance, I took in the reposed half-grin of her mouth that was familiar to me when she was content or in a detached thinking mode. She often looked that way – as though she were enjoying some private joke while the rest of the world hurried on. I took in her stooped, narrow shoulders – so familiar – and her hands which were clasped firmly on the steering wheel; she was a careful driver who would not take her eyes off the road or her hands off the wheel. In this case, she seemed to keep her vigil straight on a daughter who spent too much time looking in a rear view mirror. The only feature unlike my mother was the pair of dark sunglasses – since she never wore them – but even those were oddly shaped just like her reading glasses. Maybe she was trying to disguise herself!

I studied all these particulars as a whole when we both stopped at the red light and I had time to study her image in my rear view mirror for a minute or more. I’ve never been so grateful for a long red light as this time when I could keep my eyes fixed on the rear view mirror where her image was perfectly reflected. I heard my own voice say aloud – to myself, but also to the spirit of what I saw and felt – I said, “So you’re watching over me, aren’t you ma?” Just then, although she too was alone in her car, the woman grew a large grin across her face, stretching and taking in the length of those nasolabial lines on her face. I was grateful for all that extra saggy skin on her face because I saw that it accommodated a larger grin. In the mode of her full smile, she looked even more like my mother . . . even more so . . . and I smiled in my own car too. Feeling braver, I said aloud again, “I knew it, I knew it was you, and I know you’ve been with me all week . . . “

I had more to say, especially about the making of club sauce, but the red light turned green and we were both obliged to move forward. I glanced in my mirror once we had crossed the intersection, and I saw her right-turn signal blink, which meant she’d be leaving me soon. Just as she was about to turn right and I was to continue straight, I said, “So what was that all about if you can’t follow me home to see the 22 jars of club sauce on my kitchen counter?” The woman’s car turned right, and the car that had been behind her suddenly passed and pulled in front of me to stop at the next red light. The car’s license plate read, “4 HA-HA.” And then I understood – it was her answer to me – for the fun of it.

Club Sauce, the recipe
36 lg. tomatoes, peeled and cooked down slightly
6 lg. onions, chopped
18 long skinny hot red peppers, ground
6 cups white vinegar
6 cups sugar
6 Tbsp. salt

Add all ingredients except hot peppers, cook slowly for 2 or 3 hours, will thicken slightly. Add hot peppers and cook a little longer. Process pint jars in hot water bath for 20 minutes.

The Miracle of Three Arms

This scene from Costco yesterday: A mother with three young children – one is a baby girl, perhaps two months old; the other two are boys, maybe four years and two years old. The older boy is sitting in the cart with bulk food items all around him, and he is managing the inventory with contentment. The two-year-old is having a meltdown and running beside his mother, crying and yelling to a pitch that grates all nerves – the mother repeating calmly but firmly the single directive, Stop, Stop . . . though it does no good. He is in meltdown mode, the kind of which my father and his generation used to say only a “good whack” could snap him out of – my mother called it “shock therapy” – and though I never tried it on my own children, it seemed to work for my parents.

Back to the scene – the baby lay in her “dish” in the the front of the cart looking up at the bright lights of this world to which she has been brought; chaos is swirling round her, the cart going faster as the noise gets louder, the lights big and bright. Her small mouth makes only the oo-shape, but no sound comes forth; her eyes are bigger than her oo-shaped mouth. I passed this group once in the aisles, going in the opposite direction, and I felt only irritation at the grating din of the two-year-old – though I admired the modulated Stop, Stop that never veered off course.

I had come to Costco for one dinner item, so my trip was quick, and I had no cart to wrangle with. I was surprised when I found myself in the checkout line beside hers only a few minutes later. My view was superb, for I lagged behind by only a fraction. My sentiments changed as I viewed this poor woman with children growing out of her – the food items toppling o’er and propped even in the baby’s seat – the two-year old still screaming inconsolably. Once parked in the checkout line, she picked him up to hold him closely, his croc-clad feet kicking her bellywise all the while. She had the facial expression of those cows or dogs you see when they are nursing calves or many pups and they cannot move for fear of disturbance to the rankling young – and the hurt it might cause her own body – and the screams of protest and hunger it might arouse – and the tiredness . . . it is an ultimate submission to a younger set. I saw all of that in her face – the history and evolution and universality of it all. I began to understand that her well-modulated Stop, Stop may have come from this level of submission and tiredness and personal need – and not from a good parenting book she had read. She could muster no more.

Then it came time for her to load the bulk food items onto the counter for check-out. I could blame none of those food items for the demise of the two-year-old’s nervous system – yogurt, cheerios, fruit snacks, bananas, orange juice. She tried hard to provide easy but nutritious foods to her young.

Continue:  She is unloading food with one hand while the two-year-old still squirms and kicks and cries in her arms – and just then the four-year-old abruptly stands up inside the cart, his head or shoulder bumping the baby’s dish so that baby shows shock on her placid face – where did that come from? – he reaches round to pat baby’s head and face with a firm open palm while she is trying to dodge his pats with her blinking eyes.

And somehow the mother manages to steady the baby’s dish with one hand while lending a lift out of the cart to the four-year-old with another arm – continuing to hold the two-year-old – somehow unloading bulk food items – reaching into her purse for the Costco membership card that someone has requested . . . all of that. And instead of jumping out of line to help her as I realize now I should have done, I thought of that miniature Russian icon I bought long ago when I was a young mother – it is called The Icon of the Mother of God of Three Arms – and its significance has to do with the miracle of restoring a prayerful man’s arm that had been cut off, but for me it has always represented the far more mysterious phenomenon of the woman who tends to many things . . .

. . . and I saw her bend over with that screaming two-year-old still on her hip to retrieve items from the bottom shelf of the cart – cases of things – and I saw pendulous breasts nearly reach to the floor – and that look of pale submission on her face. Her feet and arms and legs were pale as milk too – and this is the end of summer when we all have our summer tans if only by osmosis. I think, as she bends over, that it must be a hormone that does that, that makes a woman agree to all this – for I know it is not just this trip through Costco that she will endure, but the trip through the parking lot, the buckling-in of squirmy children, the loading of food into the van, the unloading once she’s home, the hunger and cries of children, the tired two-year-old, a nursling who will speak up in turn . . . it is 3:00; she will think about dinner, there will be no naps, no tea, no five-minute bathroom break. No impulse of hers will evolve into a complete thought. All thought will be snipped, cut short, formed halfway in the brain. I used to think about brain synapses when I was a young mother, those junctions or connective things that form in the brain when babies and children (adults too) are learning and thinking. I always felt that my own brain synapses were being snipped in half by a great orange scissors (as I imagined it) because I could never complete a thought or sentence. I am still amazed that the brain knows how to heal once the children are grown – it knows how to perform the miracle of restoring its own synapses of thought and learning, to re-connect and complete its own sentences in the brain – and even to write them!

I thought of the woman with many arms all the way home from Costco and on my way to yoga class that evening . . . all last night while I was falling asleep, and this morning when I woke up – and finally, while writing this snippet, I forgave myself for not writing that book of mine when the children were young and I was a mother not working.

Hobo Bags

My self-education in the stock market comes at a time when there is no winning that can’t be snatched away like a red cape from the bull’s pathway. Each time the caboodle goes up, it comes down too – as though not one stock could think independently, but rather must follow the herd. Either all arrows are red, or all arrows are green. We all go up, we all go down. The vicissitudes of the market, as the saying goes.

I’m really tired of watching things go up and down – while never funding what I really want, which is a trip to somewhere I’ve never been. What use are those graphs in vivid movement if I never leave the house? I stay put, a graph in flat line.

The end of summer – and August, my least favorite of all the months. August is when tolerance is pushed past the limit, when nothing more can be done for summer and nothing much can be started for fall. It’s a seedy month – when all the flowering has been done, but the dead and drying leaves refuse to let go. It’s a time of suspension – in the air, in our actions, even in the way the insects drone without end. I walk outside at night or early in the morning, hear those herds of cicada that can’t be seen, and I think, they are flat lined too. Waiting.

I won’t be able to tolerate seeing that movie that promises to be all the rage – “Eat, Pray, Love.” I won’t even read the book. All I know is that it’s about a woman who takes off from the responsibilities of life for one year to travel the world and experience Life. She divides her year between three countries, Italy, India, and Indonesia. It’s a spiritual quest too. And of course she falls in love at the end. It is written in part or in whole from the real life experience of the author. She came home to write the book, and it was an instant success.

Yesterday, while waiting to get my hair trimmed, I flipped through a magazine and saw a page of “gear” that we must own now that the movie is coming out – it’s called “The Eat, Pray, Love image.” For example, there is a canvas striped hobo bag that you could buy for $190; a blue chambray shirt with a nehru neckline, $112; bright pink canvas espadrilles for walking the markets of New Delhi and tasting new delights from the hands of another – at $100 or so. It’s the gear, the look, the lifestyle – though few of us could replicate the Julia Roberts toothy grin and thick hair that piles atop her head in Bohemian fashion. We should all run out to adopt the look of the middle aged woman (who doesn’t look middle aged) who has fortuitously taken a year to travel the world and experience all that few of us can even imagine.

Women at middle age, realizing that they have maybe 20 years left before they are immobile or at least compromised – they wake from the instinct of giving life to others and they crave to experience life for themselves. They want to have Fun, as our contemporary Cyndi Lauper told us when we were young – that is, we want to travel, eat foods we have not cooked ourselves, see people and places for no good reason other than to experience Life. Women are the natural born keepers of life – which is why they give birth – and, after childbearing years are done, they still have the impulse to live life which is really just the continuum of giving life.  That’s why the marketeers think they can peddle this book and movie to us, that we'll latch onto it like life itself.  It’s odd, however, that in the course of my own “travels” – to the bank, grocery store, yoga class – I’ve heard women say, “No, I don’t want to see that movie, “ or, “I can’t bear to see that.” One woman said, “I got to New Delhi with her and I tossed the book in the trash.” I think most women know the difference between real Life and the improbable one that is sold on the screen or in a book. The first question everyone has is, how'd she get the money? This particular subject of wanting to experience our lives while still mobile is too treasured and touchy for most of us to face in facsimile form.

I looked for a long time at that striped hobo bag in the magazine, knowing I had one similar to that (for much less money) when my children were young and diapers were kept there. And the blue chambray shirt – to this day I call it my uniform -- I had several.  Julia Roberts is smiling . . . that familiar hobo bag slung o'er her blue shoulder . . . you too can have this life, she seems to say.

I think most women by the August of their lives know the difference between marketing, the stock market, and the markets of New Delhi.  Let the real one stand up.

A Taste for Books

“Then old Mrs. Rabbit took a basket and her umbrella and went through the wood to the baker’s. She bought a loaf of bread and five currant buns.”

This is a line from one of my favorite books, “The Tale of Peter Rabbit,” and I can’t help but quote it to myself, or to anyone who cares to listen, every time I bake a batch of sourdough rye currant buns.

During my very brief career as a high school English teacher, I was advised by a veteran teacher that any assigned project would gain students’ cooperation and maybe even excitement so long as food was involved.

That bit of advice comes back to me as I sort through the nearly-empty bedrooms of my grown children and an attic of clutter that includes boxes and bags of children’s books. The great number of food-themed books is suddenly before me – “The Gingerbread Boy,” “Stone Soup,” “Jamie O’Rourke and The Big Potato,” “Rain Makes Applesauce” – to name a few. The entire “Strega Nona” series by Tomie dePaola seems to be based on the love of pasta and bread – and the term “never ending pasta pot” and the baking of an Italian panettone at Christmastime have become both a friendly phrase and an annual tradition in our house because of his books. Some book purchases were made after my children were grown, such as the complete collection of Winnie the Pooh tales – whose enduring quest can be boiled down to two things: honey and friendship. That veteran teacher was right – children (of all ages) have a natural affinity for food.

As a parent, I particularly enjoyed quoting a guilt-instilling passage from my personal favorite, “The Little Red Hen.” This is about a hardworking hen who lives with others who enjoy the fruits of her efforts but none of the hard work. This is what she says, a quote I have memorized from repeated usage: “’All by myself I planted the wheat, I cut the wheat, I took the wheat to the mill to be ground into flour. All by myself I gathered the sticks, I built the fire, I mixed the cake. And all by myself I am going to eat it!’ And so she did, to the very last crumb.”

All children are prone to eating too much of a good thing – as is Peter Rabbit who got carried away in Mr. McGregor’s garden by all the tempting radishes, lettuce, French beans . . . “And feeling rather sick, he went to look for some parsley.” At nighttime, he was put to bed by his mother and given a tablespoon of chamomile tea – “But Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail had bread and milk and blackberries for supper.”  I enjoyed quoting this when one child felt sick (or had tonsils out) and couldn't eat dinner.

“Children are the best readers of genuine literature,” says Isaac Bashevis Singer, one of my favorite writers of both children’s and adult literatures -- categories he frequently blurs or ignores according to his publisher. Singer continues, “The child is still the independent reader who relies on nothing but his own taste (my italics).  Names and authorities mean nothing to him. Long after literature for adults has gone to pieces, books for children will constitute the last vestige of storytelling, logic, faith in the family, in God, and in real humanism . . . "

My children are technically grown, and these tattered childhood books have one by one been moved from the attic and bedrooms to my own personal library – and some, to their rightful place in the kitchen. I have never stopped loving them. I find myself quoting those timeless classics much as a scholar might quote Blake or Keats – if only to myself as I bake the traditional panettone or the occasional batch of currant buns, always to be enjoyed alongside a cup of tea.

Some Mother's Bird

The baby bluebirds are eating on their own today, not perched on the feeder helplessly waiting for mother or father to place food in their mouths – though if a parent shows up they will suspiciously open needy beaks to let out infantile squeals of helplessness as though they’d been left to starve – it’s easier that way, they might think. Their mother must be watching them from high branches, observing as they feed themselves like grown-ups, before she comes down to share the feeder with them as equals – for she is hungry too. That’s when her babies remind her, we shall never be equals; you shall always be our mother.

I saw her, the mother, look at one of these splotchy blue fledglings at the birdfeeder the other day – the same old response came from the baby – that is, an open, begging beak – and she perched herself face to face against this fledgling as though sitting him down for a lesson. She braced her body – and how can I say I saw this, a bracing? She looked stiff, astute, statue-like, and she stared straight into the open beak of the bird. She leaned slightly forward as though readying herself to make an attack – and against her own baby! She held the most statue-like presence of an angry bird that I had ever seen. The baby, clueless and impervious – for this mother had always been kind – kept opening its beak and squealing – didn’t you hear me, mother? Won’t you feed me? Why are you acting that way? But mother remained resolute . . .

This is the same mother who, along with her mate, had worked tirelessly to hatch and feed babies all through June. Each morning mother and father seemed to anticipate my emergence from the front door to put out a few tablespoons of store-bought worms to supplement the diet of their growing family in the birdhouse out back. She must have been watching me from above, for before I could get back into the house to look out the kitchen window, she and her mate would be working in tandem to peck up as many wiggly things into their beaks as possible for delivery to their little house out back. They’d work one at the feeder, one at the birdhouse, back and forth, till all the harvesting was done – and I would run from kitchen window to back room window, trying to keep pace with each, but sometimes missing one or the other along the way. Humorously, I’d catch the male bird lingering at the feeder to sample a few tasty treats for himself before filling his beak for the family – why not? – while mother bird never showed anything but drive in her eyes – the drive to satisfy the hunger of noisy babies. I’ve seen that look before. I understand now why Disney chose merry bluebirds to ready Cinderella for the ball – to sew her dress, tie her bows, and carry her train – for they are active, hardworking, vigilant, and driven birds.

Once I saw a noisome squirrel – they’re all noisome – get too close to the hatchlings’ house, and out of nowhere came diving a sapphire male bluebird toward the squirrel’s head. As soon as the squirrel went running, this furious bluebird chased him across the backyard while flying not four inches from the ground.

Flying lessons began over Fourth of July weekend – watchful parents sat perched in high branches while their twin fledglings made awkward hops and leaps into the unknown, at one time landing like dropped eggs onto this back doorstep where they looked up to me for guidance as to what should be done next. I had already seen what happened to that noisome squirrel, so I kept my distance other than to click a few photos – they grow up so fast . . .

But that was June . . . then the Holiday . . . and now, mid-July, this mother holds firm at feeding time. Unmoved by the gaping mouth, I saw her make one straight pecking attack at her baby’s open beak. She did not touch the young bird, but I think had calculated the move only to make her point – I will not be feeding you again.

The baby bird did not pull back, was not afraid of the simulated attack, and did not flinch a feather. Then the mother flew away, having stated her purpose firmly. She didn’t feed her baby – but interestingly, she also didn’t partake of the worms I had put out to feed the whole family. She had shown her fledglings this easy hunting ground; she would find her own food elsewhere.

I saw her come back later after the babies had had their fill and flown away to some higher branches. She came up to the feeder alone, hopped around to look full circle for her fledglings – realizing, I think, that she was alone at last – then poked around half-heartedly into the leftover meal to see if any worms had been left for her. None!  I think that made her happy. She stayed perched there a few minutes longer – her stature relaxed now, the drive gone from her eyes, the readiness gone from her wings. She looked out over a world still waiting for her. In all of June, I had never seen her rest upon the feeder so contentedly.

Dreams of our mothers
Lived in younger hosts;
A safe passage, is all for now
She prays.