Stop dropping off fledglings
like I can just ignore
something that is not yet grown
and expected to start functioning
alone!

Last year,
you cocky redbreasts thought
that three could bob happily
in the construction site
and thankfully I found no bodies
or feather puffs

This year,
that cheeky blackbird
who happily stalks the lawn
(though moss pile is more accurate)
has dropped bright and happy chicks
in the pell-mell mix of my
****** horticulture

And don’t get me started on the pigeons!

The cats round here,
like everywhere
are at best loveable rogues
with claws on fingers
and toes that like to ****
for spits and giggles

In these times
I turn to nature to save me
but you crank my anxiety
like the ***** grinder’s
forbidden monkey

Gimme a break, please?

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