The small charm of migrants
has returned and with them
the making of another year’s
nest tucked behind our wreath
of maiden-head fern and lemon
grass. There’s no accounting
for how they keep the threads
of memory tucked within their
tiny heads, noting the seasons
that came and went, the quirky
ways of wind and terrain that’s
a mixture of soft-tilled earth,
woodlands and pasture, and
then greeting us with their
incessant clattering as they
manically gather and build,
wanting only to create and
somehow extend life. Like
us, their work is slap-dash,
leaving a wrecked world of
hair, grass, feathers and twigs
and the falling apart of day-
long labors. And yet, there’s
something about their desperate
labor and frenetic motion even
as they forsake rest and reason,
defying gravity and coaxing
fledglings from a ramshackle
perch to blithely lunge
and assault the April air.
