On Wonder

Green comfort

/ Fran Haley / 8 Comments

Written 7/9/2024

Today I type my thoughts while sitting by the green-gray Atlantic. Ancient undulations roll on and on like Time itself, cascading into new foam as brief and bright as this new morning.

The older I become (this is the last year of my fifties) the more I contemplate the brevity of things. Suddenly—it seems—the kids are grown with lives of their own. The granddaughters are older and smarter every day. Micah, age two-and-three-quarters, carries on a conversation like an adult. She knows what “be brave” means. She will need that attribute in life more than she can know.

I have.

My husband walks out into the waters for a moment. He’s not much of a beachgoer anymore, after all his medical crises in recent years. He’s here because I want to be. Because I need a little salt, a little sun, probably a lot of Vitamin D, and the comfort of this vast continuum. We loved the beach when we were young. Almost thirty-nine years into the marriage, the ocean is personal metaphor, a living promise, ceaseless.

Ever how grounded I may be in my faith, I am not immune to lapses. Today, as I logged on to write this post, WordPress offered a prompt:

What strategies do you use to increase comfort in your daily life?

And in my email inbox, a devotion from Our Daily Verse on increasing perseverance.

For me, the key to increasing comfort and perseverance in daily life begins with remembering that God is still God. No matter what. Not merely the limb on which I perch when I’m tired and despairing, but the whole of existence. The true eternal. Generations of our whole human history rise and fall like the ocean waves, and God holds it all.

The sun grows hot. My husband can’t take it for long, and, truth be told, neither can I. Our morning by the sea is brief. We must seek a respite. Somewhere shadowy and green.

I can’t help thinking of forgiveness as a green thing…well-watered with tears, surely, but under its lush canopy, comfort. Rest. Freedom. Peace. As we prepare to leave the shore, my husband and I watch parasailors. How peaceful it must be, so high above it all. I wonder what they hear up there. Here on the ground I hear the ocean’s roar, a strain of cicadas in the scrubby brush, and a baby laughing nearby, playing in the sand.

Some of my favorite sounds on Earth.

Along with the house finch singing as soon as we arrived at the beach this morning. I heard it as soon as I opened the car door. Instantly recognizable. It’s the beautiful song I hear on my front porch every spring and summer. In itself, the sound of perseverance. Of home. It seems to follow me everywhere I go. “Hello, Finch,” I called back to him, perched there in his crape myrtle tree, his little head and breast as red as sunset.

At a recent gathering, my neighbor joked that we’ve reached the time of life in which we just want to watch birds.

There’s comfort in it.

Yesterday while walking through the beach community I saw a green heron. I don’t recall ever having seen one before. A week ago I responded to a fellow blogger, wishing I could have seen the green heron she wrote of, so lyrically.

And one came to me.

The heron and I watched each other for a long awed moment, before she (?) flew to the other side of the pond and I walked on, to let her be.

I contemplate the symbolism of the green heron.

From a biblical perspective, my first go-to, it’s not great. Herons are “unclean” per the Law, i.e., not suitable for consumption, although one resource states that “The very poor of our western and southeastern coast states eat them”(in 1915, that is to say, per the ISB Encyclopedia, written just before the birds were protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act). I wasn’t expecting this, the act or the desperation. It’s been illegal to hunt and kill herons for over a hundred years. Furthermore, the green heron is known to be an irritable, angry bird.

Sounds like some people l know. I don’t want to be one of them.

There are a number of other spiritual meanings associated with the green heron, among them humility, patience, adaptability, wisdom, the ability to focus intently (heaven knows I need this; I used to be better at it than I am now)… and perseverance.

What it really comes down to, however, is how I felt when I encountered this bird. I’d desired to see it, and it came. We were maybe ten feet apart. The heron fixed its bright golden eye intently on me and I was awed. Encouraged. Curious.

It didn’t say anything but I imagine if we spoke the same language, it might have said Be watchful. Be brave. You will persevere. What you need will be provided.

All this in a space of a held breath, in a flutter of green wings, beside the still waters…

I believe. I walk lighter, a wordless green song in my heart.

My green heron

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the Tuesday Slice of Life Story Challenge

Angels

/ Fran Haley / 21 Comments

There are times in life when a theme chases you, and you find you need to write about it.

Such is the case today.

Angels.

They keep reappearing.

There’s the neighborhood rooster I wrote about on Sunday, and the ancient Muslim belief that a rooster crows because it has seen an angel.

There’s the memoir Angela’s Ashes that I returned to for my St. Patrick’s Day post, wherein author Frank McCourt’s mother keeps having babies and his father says an angel brings them, specifically the Angel of the Seventh Step, where he claims to have found Frank’s newest baby brother. Young Frank starts looking for the angel. When he wakes in the night, he goes to check the seventh step: Sometimes I’m sure there’s a light there and if everyone’s asleep I sit on the step in case the angel might be bringing another baby or just coming for visit…I’m sure the angel is there and I tell him all the things you can’t tell your mother or father for fear of being hit on the head or told to go out and play.…

There’s my husband’s sermon series over the last months, in which he mentioned times of trial, temptation, suffering, and the appearance of ministering angels, with this repeated exhortation that I scribbled down on two different Sunday order-of-worship bulletins: Look for the angels.

There’s his sermon this past Sunday, which referenced the greedy soothsayer, Balaam, and his donkey which refused, three times, to not travel down the road where the increasingly irate Balaam was trying to direct it, because the donkey could see the angel of the Lord there with a drawn sword when Balaam could not; and haven’t we all experienced, in some way or other, animals seeing what we can’t? (Remember the rooster…).

There’s another book I pulled off my shelf this week, The Art of Comforting, in which author Val Walker tells of being diagnosed with premature ovarian failure; she will never have the child she’s longed for. Shortly afterward she’s laid off from her job in a massive downsizing. As her husband goes away on a business trip, she cries for the loss of the life she thought she’d been destined to live: “My angel books and angel music could no longer comfort me. I prayed to God to send me a real angel. I was ready for a bona fide spiritual visit from heaven.” To her shock, the doorbell rings…chiding herself for thinking it could really be an angel, she answers it to find a “small, sweaty man in a filthy T-shirt and muddy shoes. He must have been one of the laborers working on my neighbor’s lawn…” and with him is a golden retriever, staring at her, wagging its tail.

Turns out the man has come to ask, in broken English, if this is her dog (it’s not). He then asks for water for the animal; it’s a terribly hot day. Walker gives a bowl of water to the dog. She offers a glass to the man. The visitors leave together, and she reflects: Just ten minutes earlier, desperate enough to go begging to God, I had prayed for a brilliant, glowing angel to come to me…was this stranger my angel? I don’t know. But I do know that in witnessing his beautiful kindness toward that dog I was reassured that comforting still existed on earth…always remember, comfort is all around us. We are never alone.

I’m not sure the man was the angel, either.

I’m pretty sure the dog was.

Then there are experiences much closer to home, some of which I shared in yesterday’s post with my “Bad things are going to happen” poem.

There was my husband’s diagnosis of ocular melanoma…shortly after which, while driving and contemplating having his eye removed, he stopped at a traffic light and saw, he says, the brightest flash of white light before him. Nothing was there to cause such a flash. He’d never experienced anything like it before. Optical illusion? Maybe. Stress? Possibly. But he said he was instantly flooded with comfort and knew everything would be okay.

And it was.

Then there was his cardiac arrest on a Sunday afternoon, driving home from the gym. He lost control of his truck; it veered into coming traffic, then crossed back over and ran off the road into a grove of trees…without striking anything. The last thing he remembers, as all went dark and peaceful, are voices saying He’s in trouble. We have to get him off the road.

Angels?

You decide.

As for me, I realize the words were written on my heart long before I scribbled them in the Sunday bulletins. I know, whatever the days may bring, or how long the darkest night may seem, in times of my greatest need, I’ll heed my preacher’s advice:

Look for the angels.

They’re all around us.

“backlit Golden Retriever“. theilr. CC BY-SA 2.0.

*******

Composed for Day 26 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers

Works cited:

McCourt, Frank. Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir. New York, Scribner, 1996. (Pages 102-107)
Walker, Val. The Art of Comforting: What to Say and Do for People in Distress. New York, Penguin, 2010. (Pages 241-244)

Nature’s divine voice

/ Fran Haley / 20 Comments

“Nature is the infrastructure of our communities…Nature enriches us economically and culturally and historically, but it also enriches us spiritually. God talks to human beings through many vectors: Through organized religions and the great books of those religions, through the prophets and wise people, and through art and literature and music and poetry, but nowhere with the same detail and texture and grace and joy as through Creation. And when we destroy nature, we impoverish our children. We diminish their capacity—and our own—to sense the Divine, to understand who God is, and to grasp what our own potential is as human beings.” —Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Confession

Before I started writing
in earnest
I didn’t know
how much
I love nature

I should have known
by the way
cicada summersong
stirs sacred memories

I should have known
by the certain slant
of light
on fiery autumn trees
there’s hope within
which never leaves

I should have known
from the brilliant beckoning
of silversharp stars
on a clear winter’s night
or by Venus,
glittering bright
over the ocean
as the sun rises
that the soul
must keep reaching
for what it cannot
grasp

I should have known
that once I start seeking
I will find
just as I discover hawks
perched high above me
every single time
I think to look up

I should have known
by the poignant scent
of fallen pines
and freshcut grass
that newness
returns
after the pain

I should have known
how much humans
have lost
by not living close
to the earth
as we were meant to
(as we did, in ages past)
or how this void
is behind
the longing
of every soul
crying out
for belonging
healing
restoration
and peace

I should have known
all things
are interconnected
and sustained

by the voice
speaking through
nature…

Before I started writing
in earnest
I didn’t know
how much
I love nature

but the important thing
is that I know it now

I will always know it, now

for, like finchsong
at my door,
untold glories
surround me

weaving their way
into my writings
so that I recognize
holy rhythms
of life

spoken into being
into my being

—let me listen
oh, let me listen.

One of last year’s baby bluebirds hanging out by its natal home, on my back deck

*******
Composed for Day 13 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers

Otters

/ Fran Haley / 15 Comments

My granddaughter, Micah, loves otters.

It is my fault.

Last summer, when she was just a year-and-three quarters old, I showed her a clip of a squealing baby otter in water for the first time (I find this scenario confusing but I’ve chosen to accept it for the time being).

Her dad, my son, recorded her reaction…oh, and that’s Dennis, of course. He has to be in the middle of everything:

On every subsequent visit, Micah has asked to see the baby otter.

I’ve played the clip a million times.

Naturally I started buying her otter toys.

Micah’s Mama gave her the CUTEST otter bedroom slippers for her second birthday (I so wish I had a photo; I must get one).

Imagine my delight upon finding this blanket at Christmastime:

Micah adores it so much that she must have it now to go to sleep.

This gives my Franna-heart so much joy, as she’s struggled with going to sleep all of her little life.

When she stays at my house, she will crawl into my lap and say, “Snuggle. Need baby otter blanket.”

So I carry her to retrieve it. We return to the sofa. I wrap the baby otters around her, rocking gently, gently, until she drifts off.

And I will hold her for ever how long it takes, until she wakes.

Once in a while
There comes a creature so wondrous
That you will hold it close forever
Embracing joy, erasing fear…
Rest here against Franna’s beating heart
Sleep, my darling, sleep.

*******

Composed for Day 12 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers

If you build it…

/ Fran Haley / 10 Comments

The Birdbath

We built it, we three
my sweet granddaughters and me
fountain birdbath, see

spray sparkling in sun
although birds have yet to come
awe, already won

My little bird-girl Micah, 20 months

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the weekly Slice of Life Story Challenge

Home poem

/ Fran Haley / 16 Comments

For today’s Open Write on Ethical ELA, participants are invited to write poems about “places we call home”.

Nothing pulls on the heart like home… I can almost hear the Beatles’ song “In My Life” playing in the background: “There are places I remember all my life, though some have changed…” The memory of these places, and the spirit of them, really are the theme song of our lives.

Of all the places I remember and could write about…have written about…I choose my home now. I have lived here the longest. I became a grandmother here. I have learned a lot more about savoring here. Usually I try to make my poem title do more work, but today, no other will do. 

Home

In the first moments
of pale-pink light
the big brown rabbit
comes from the woods
to nibble away
at the clover

in the ever-thickening branches
of the crape myrtle
my husband and planted
years ago
I can spot hummingbirds
hiding among the leaves
always alone
never together 

they dart, one by one
to the kitchen-window feeder

silvery-green females
perfect, pure
ethereal as fairies

a male, ruby fire at his throat
(brighter than the cardinal-flame
landing over on the fence)
impossible greens and turquoise 
shimmering on his back

unaware of his utter tininess
he sometimes perches
atop the feeder
as if to say I am King
of this Water-Mountain

a pair of doves feeds
on the ground by the tree line
then takes flight on pearly wings
vanishing in the pines and sweetgums
where their nest is secreted

robins, robins everywhere
just last week
a speckled fledgling on the back deck
both parents in the grass
chirping ground-control instructions

the mockingbird in the driveway
strutting and stretching his banded wings
as if he knows how legendary he is

a trill of finch-song from a nearby tree
so plaintive I fear my heart may burst

and the bluebirds
oh the bluebirds

if only I spoke green language
I would explain that I removed their house
from the back deck 
because it is about to be torn down

that I waited
until their unexpected second brood
flew out into the world

never imagining these parents
would return to the empty rail corner
a day or two later
clearly so puzzled
to find their house gone…

if I were the hermit wizard-woman
of this semi-enchanted nook
(as I sometimes pretend to be)
I would have known what to do

but my unmagical self did my best:
placing the birdhouse atop
the old wooden arbor
built by my oldest
when he was a boy

well away
from the impending deck destruction

and to my astonishment
the bluebirds have followed
their home

I do not yet know
if more eggs have been laid
in the house relocated
to the arbor

but as evening draws
and the pine-shadows fall
across the arbor
and the crape myrtle
and the big brown rabbit
back in the clover
and the old dog’s grave
and the old deck
about to be made new

I ponder
my length of time on this Earth
and the continuous carving-out
of home
how it goes on and on

a path forever unfolding before me
that I must follow

like the doe in the little clearing
across the road
pausing for one long moment
with her two fawns
before disappearing
in the leafy green

One fawn has already been ushered across

*******

with thanks to Ethical ELA and Two Writing Teachers
for the inviolable, invaluable writing spaces
and the inspiration

Of foxes, finches, and Franna

/ Fran Haley / 11 Comments

Today I celebrate language.

Let me begin with the fox.

Last Friday I arrived at a hotel ballroom for a breakfast buffet in honor of educators and volunteers who had read aloud to children throughout the year. We had concluded a program built on developing positive relationships and instilling a love for reading in the kids.

There at a table, greeting folks upon arrival, sat the fox.

The Poetry Fox, to be precise.

A guy in a furry fox suit, typing away on an old-timey typewriter.

Turns out that if you gave the Poetry Fox a word, he would type a poem for you on the spot.

I nearly forgot the breakfast altogether; I had to stand in line for a poem.

Two women in front of me gave him the words daughter and twins (who are leaving the nest to go to college). Within two or three minutes, Poetry Fox tapped out each poem, stamped his “official” seal on the pages, and read them their poems.

I can hardly describe the looks on these women’s faces. Radiant. Smiling, slightly open-mouthed. Eyes wide, misting. The air about them even seemed to glow…

My turn.

“It’s National Poetry Month,” I said to the Fox.

“Indeed!” he replied with glee.

“As I love reading and writing poetry… that is the word I give you. Poetry.”

“Wow, no one’s ever asked me to write about the word poetry before,” said Poetry Fox. “I get creativity and inspiration but not poetry…okay, let’s go!”

He rolled a sheet of paper in the old typewriter and pecked away.

Here’s the poem:

In a word: awe. It’s my life-word anyway… those last lines, especially.

all language
reveals itself
as poetry
the only language
that ever
means anything

The glow of this poem, and the wonder of the Poetry Fox whipping it out on the spot, stayed with me for the remainder of the day…to be honest, it hasn’t left yet.

Early the next morning I was still thinking about poetry being the only language that ever means anything when the sound of loud, melodic chirping echoed through the house. The finches nesting in my door wreath, feeding the hungry babies. In the beginning, before their eyes are open, the babies sense a presence and open their mouths in silent cries for food. They do not yet have voices. They do now. They chorus like tiny Oliver Twists: Food, glorious food! We’re anxious to try it…three banquets a day, our favourite diet! Except that they consume more than three banquets a day; Mama and Papa work hard to keep the babies fed.

I decided to chance a photo when the parents were out fetching… when I neared, speaking quietly so they could hear me coming, the babies fell silent at once. They do not know what I am, but they know I am not Mama or Papa with food and instinct tells them don’t make a sound.

I am happy to report that all are presently doing well (you can see all five baby beaks here):

The baby finches deepen my awe of language and poetry. They are language and poetry to me, with their musical chatter and even in the cessation of it. So tiny and new, but so infinitely wise.

Which brings me to my granddaughter, age eighteen months.

She came that afternoon to stay with my husband and me. We marvel at the new words she’s acquiring every single day, how she studies our faces for responses, how she mimics actions. She now says Grampa quite clearly, to my husband’s utter delight. I’ve tried and tried to get her to say Franna, but she only grins; is she teasing?

But on this afternoon, she stopped playing with her favorite musical toy to walk over to him where he sat in the recliner. Looking up at him, she patted his hand with her tiny one.

Grampa, she said. Grampa.

It was a holy moment. I don’t know how else to say it. She was naming him, claiming him. A sacred act. My eyes welled.

And before I knew it, she was standing before me where I sat on the couch, looking at up me with gleaming brown eyes.

She patted my hand.

Franna, she said.

Pure poetry.

The only language that ever means anything.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the weekly Slice of Life writing share
and Lionel Bart for the song “Food, Glorious Food” in the Broadway musical Oliver!
and Poetry Fox
and the finches
and my beautiful Micah

For my finch followers: returning thanks

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments

Dear Delivery People:

Thank you
for respecting
my taped-up signs
that say stay away 
from the front porch
it’s a bird sanctuary again
the house finches nested early
on the door wreath I left for them
Mama laid four tiny eggs in blue cold
mohawked nestlings hatched in a snowfall
by mid-March I thought the fledglings
had all flown, for there was no more
happy chatter-song at the door 
and when I checked I found
two perfectly beautiful
fledglings dead
in the nest

how 
why
what
happened
here

I placed them together 
in a deep pile of dry leaves 
at wood’s edge because birds
do not bury their dead
they are creatures
of the air

I tore down
the death-nest
and my taped-up signs

and read online
that birds grieve
the death of
their young

the next day
blades of green grass
appeared on the wreath
where the nest had been

the day after that, more
grass and flowered strands

scientists say that only
the mother finch builds
the nest but I am here
to tell you that the father
worked just as hard

in tandem they flew
with string and fluff
in their beaks
chattering their
architectural plans

in five days,
recreating 
what was lost

and now
in the most
exquisitely-lined nest
I’ve ever seen

there are new blue eggs

exactly
two

so thank you,
Delivery People
for reading my
freshly-taped signs

this
is a sacred
little space
where miracles
of nature
take place

*******
with thanks to b.c. randall for today’s VerseLove invitation on Ethical ELA:

“Write today’s  poem for someone else: the boy who bags your groceries, the neighbor who walks by your front window every day, that colleague or friend who has been on your mind. Craft the poem  to be left for another to unwrap (a gift that we all need).”

For my finch followers

/ Fran Haley / 4 Comments

On the fourth day of rebuilding after tragedy, here’s what the new house finch nest looks like:

In all the years of finches raising broods in my front door wreath, I have never seen a nest lined with such deep layers of fluff and feathers. The little blue eggs to come any morning now (prediction: the first one on Sunday) will be so well-cradled, so tenderly sheltered.

This week I read that birds mourn the loss of their young.

I believe it.

I also believe, looking at this nest, that my house finches are determined not to lose any more.

*******

Backstory/timeline:

March 1: Auspices – discovery of an unusually early nest and eggs laid in February (with photo)

March 5: Eavesdropping – audio of the parent finches’ joyous chatter

March 14: Nestlings – likely hatched during a snowfall (with photo)

March 27: Finch elegy – sad discovery

March 28: Finch fortitude – beginning anew, so quickly (with video of the parents)

March 29: Blessing – the gift of carrying on (with photo)

Finch fortitude

/ Fran Haley / 23 Comments

On Monday afternoon I came home to check the nest on my front door wreath, expecting that finch fledglings had flown. They are the earliest brood I’ve ever known: four tiny blue eggs laid during the last week of February and hatching by the second week of March; I discovered a pile of fuzzy gray, mohawked nestlings after a snowfall.

By Monday, as the temperatures finally warmed, I hadn’t heard their happy chatter at my door in a day or so. I assumed the babies had left home; it was just over two weeks after hatching, which is normal.

But that afternoon I found two perfectly beautiful fledglings dead in the nest.

First time this has happened in all the years of house finches adopting my porch as their sanctuary. No real clue as to why. Inexperienced parents? Doubtful, as nesting in my wreath is an established pattern and the finches are quite prolific. Disease? Maybe; but where were the other two babies? Sustained freezing temperatures? Possible. Survival of the fittest? Probable.

No sign of the parents. Had something happened to them? Had they abandoned these little ones? If so, why?

I stood before the nest, icy shock quickly melting into grief.

It had to be dealt with…

Armed with paper towels and cloths, I extricated the tiny lifeless babies. I carried them to the edge of the woods out back and covered them, together, in a deep bed of dry leaves. I couldn’t just throw them away; they had been living things. They had been growing. I couldn’t bury them; birds don’t bury their dead and furthermore, they’re creatures of the air.

They never got to fly.

I bid the babies goodbye and told them I was sorry that this was the best I knew to do for them, to let nature reabsorb them.

Then, the nest.

Finches sometimes reuse them.

If I were a mother bird, however, I wouldn’t want to reuse a nest where two of my precious babies had died.

I decided the nest—every one a unique masterpiece, this one threaded with tiny dried flowers and padded with white hair from some mammal—had to go. In case there were mites or germs or traces of decay…

It should be burned, I thought, as I pulled it away from the wreath.

Instead I wrapped it, bagged it, and threw it in the trash.

I almost threw the whole wreath in the trash, too, but just as I took it down, I remembered how, all winter long, two little birds slept in this wreath together at night, keeping each other warm, sometimes startling me by flying out when I opened the door.

No doubt it was the finch parents, staking their claim until nesting season.

I couldn’t throw the wreath away.

I guess…I know… well, just hoping…

I shook out the wreath and hung it back up.

Monday evening, I was forlorn. I read everything I could find online about bird babies dying in nests. I read that bird parents grieve for their lost ones. I peeked out of the front blinds; I am sure I saw a little shadowy figure on the porch railing, just as it saw me and darted away, without a sound.

I didn’t sleep well.

Tuesday morning, as I got dressed for work, the silence was depressing. This is the time I’d hear them most, the parents with their song-chatter, the chorusing baby voices…

So I went outside with my Merlin Bird Sound ID app. It picked up robins, a mockingbird, a Carolina wren, a chipping sparrow, a mourning dove…no house finches.

I drove to work heavy-hearted, knowing that there are countless other birds for the savoring and that in the human world incomparable horrors are steadily unfolding…yet that’s why the finches matter. One bit of joy that softens the edges of the blade. A little song of light against a devouring darkness. A tiny comfort on the wing, a fleeting moment of transcendence…

Tuesday afternoon I came home and checked the wreath.

I don’t know what I expected. I don’t even know if this is wise or healthy (when is a thing officially an obsession?).

It didn’t look any different. I thought I saw one shred of green grass hung in the grapevine where the nest used to be…probably a remnant.

I tried Merlin Bird Sound ID again. —Crows! You are SO. LOUD. Chickadee, cardinal, dark-eyed junco…blue-gray gnatcatcher? Chipping sparrow, osprey. —Osprey! Several of them, impossibly high overhead, calling in their wild, echoing sea-song bursts.

But even in my awe…no finches.

As I turned to leave the driveway a bird sailed right past my head to land in the crape myrtle.

I couldn’t believe it: Papa Finch! Speckled brown, gorgeous red head…I’d know him anywhere.

Then another swoop over the fence to the backyard, not so far from where I laid the babies to rest…is that Mama Finch? Am I making this up? The power of suggestion, or wishful thinking? Writer’s imagination?

I came back into the house to watch a while through the beveled glass of the front door… clandestine operations…

It wasn’t long before he appeared on the garage roof top.

Papa Finch.

With something trailing from his beak.

‘THEY ARE REBUILDING!” I cried aloud to no one, before I remembered to be clandestine.

Sure enough, Mama Finch soon joined him… appears they have a personal stash of building materials on top of my garage, for they took turns swooping to the front door.

Making a new nest, in a big hurry.

If you have time, watch the short video; it is the first footage I’ve ever obtained of the house finch parents. I’ve never even been able to get a photo. But here’s Papa holding wisps of nesting material while Mama sets hers in place; she returns, and he goes to add his layer.

In the exact same spot as the nest I removed the day before, with the lost babies.

This is what they accomplished in one afternoon:


Look at those soft white pieces procured by Papa.

They’re not done, of course, but are working feverishly in tandem; I suspect Mama is ready to lay more eggs…

If I know my finches, they’ll start hatching right around Easter.

And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new —Revelation 21:5.

For the first time, I rejoice at tearing the old nest down. I marvel at the fortitude of these little birds, prevailing today over yesterday’s loss, pressing on with urgency. They have a contribution to make to the world. This is not the first time, nor surely the last, that I am awed by the resilience and regenerative power of nature. It’s all doing exactly what it is meant to do…with hope and healing for the taking.

Courage, dear hearts.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the Slice of Life Story Challenge

and you finch-fan followers out there

for all your words of love