Backyard Bird Count

I know I should be counting birds –

and I guess I sort of am.

My little birds.

One pajama-clad at 2:30 in the afternoon.

One binocular wearing.

Several scattered across the sun-dappled dirty dead grassed yard.

One perched on a fence.

Pencils, notebooks in five diminutive pairs of hands.

Flitting.  Fluttering.  Flightless.

You absolutely are my treasure.

My collection.

My sweets.

My song.

This selfish side of me would see you stay tiny forever.

Stay small and close and mine.

Caged birds.

Pretty and contained.

Stagnant and stable.

The pieces both of what I desire and what I’d never want.

Birds – the most beautiful I’ve known.

The ones likely to grow and to take all I offer and to fly away.

To leave me,

staring at the sky,

squinting into the sun.

Full and broken and hopeful

and insignificant and left behind.

Proud and exhausted and emptied out.

The mama bird and her tidy abandoned nest.

My little ones.

My pretty birds.

Stay a little longer.

Sing a little louder.