Reflex
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy Michael Burch

Some intuition of her despair
for her lost brood,
as though a lost fragment of song
torn from her flat breast,
touched me there . . .

I felt, unable to hear
through the bright glass,
the being within her melt
as her unseemly tirade
left a feather or two
adrift on the wind-ruffled air.

Where she will go,
how we all err,
why we all fear
for the lives of our children,
I cannot pretend to know.

Keywords/Tags: mother bird, brood, nest, chicks, fledglings, children, kids, song, despair, protection, protective mother

But, O!,
how the unappeased glare
of omnivorous sun
over crimson-flecked snow
makes me wish you were here.

Keywords/Tags: mother, bird, brood, nest, chicks, fledglings, children, song, despair, protective