Just Another Day

I’ve been watching a mourning dove on her nest. I discovered the nest while removing some dead branches from the magnolia. Rogelio and his crew got the big branches down after the ice storm. The remaining ones were smallish to medium-sized. Grabbing hold of one, pulling it free, I saw the nest and realized that the dead branches had been providing additional cover for it. I put those branches right back, with great care.

When mama was away, I got a little closer. Grey fluff! I couldn’t tell how many hatchlings were there.

The yard is a raggedy riot of weeds, wildflowers, and spring perennials. It has exploded in clover, all at once. Only the peonies seem civilized.

Daisy fleabane

Hairy buttercup

Very first peony to open

The willow oak leaves are unbearably tiny as they unfurl.

“Please don’t mow the yard for now,” I tell Rogelio. He and I are just getting to know each other. It’s clear that he does not approve of this decision. He convinces me to let him mow the front lawn.

He’s just planted seven blueberry bushes for me. The blackberry vines planted last year have emerged with ambition, flowering profusely.

I check on mama a few times a day. I feel like she and I have come to an understanding. I talk to her softly while she keeps a close eye on me. We have a lot in common, you and me – I tell her.

I can’t protect her from much, but I can certainly keep Pepper and Daisy away when the fledglings leave the nest. I promise her I will. I think of what a pain it will be to keep the dogs on leash in the yard.

Chat GPT tells me it was probably dad I was talking to during the daylight hours.

This afternoon, I found the nest completely intact – and completely empty. The babies were not mature enough to leave.

I know that nests get raided.

A snake likely found it and swallowed the chicks whole. A mammal or predatory bird would have left more evidence of the crime.

The doves will start again in a few days. They may have 3 to 6 broods in a season. They may re-nest in the same area.

I feel quiet inside. It is a beautiful, terrible spring day, just like any other.

***

Late in the day I go back to take one last look.

On a nearby branch sits a small, perfect, mottled little dove.

***

Here’s a Mary Oliver poem for today. I’ve featured it at Bacon before. I wonder if you love it as much as I do.

When Death Comes

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real,
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

***

Tulip poplar

Foam flower