Fledgeling

It was the flash of pale blue shirt

that caught my eye

back and forth and back

from shed to house

past the kitchen window... then

a spark of orange, the ladder’s rattle,

a bright crinkling of a white plastic bag.

What is he doing out there?

The ladder clunks against the gutter

giant grey sneakers climb overhead

pale ankles covered with socks

pulled high to keep out the ticks.

There is creaking, thumping,

a muffled curse as some tool

is dropped below.

The white bag blows off across the lawn

and the sneakers descend. You appear

smiling at the door. “Come! Come look

at what I’ve done!”

Peering up, I spy a small plastic owl

taped to the pipe beneath the gutter

in the exact spot where the phoebe

always builds her nest. “The owl is a

predator! I read that it will keep the

phoebe away from there. No more

bird gloop on the porch!”

I smiled at your unaccustomed

garden industriousness.

I’m smiling now, a year later, as I peer up to

see 3 tiny heads peek out from the nest that’s

been carefully constructed on the pipe, its

muddy stickiness encompassing the plastic owl.

Sighing, shaking my head, scrubbing bird gloop

off the porch, I ponder... How is it that the

mama bird has returned despite all obstacles,

yet you have flown, never to return?