Song Bird

Everything inspires me about birds. I sit on my back stoop, drinking my early morning coffee, and they arrive with the sun from all around; shaking and shivering a spray of water droplets from the terracotta birdbath; pecking and snapping wild bird seed from the cobalt blue birdfeeder. I have removed birds from the mouth of my smug, killing cat and soothed their racing hearts with the warmth of my cupped hands. I have raised these naked, pink, all-beak, food-demanding groundlings into feathered, chatty flying machines.