Tag Archives: birds

Bird Talk

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Bird Talk

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for bird sounds—
insistent tapping of woodpeckers,
frantic flapping of ducks in flight,
singular calls of hawks,
and plural chatter of a hundred starlings.

Blessed are You
for chirps and caws,
clicks and buzzes,
delicate arias
and raspy complaints,
whistles and trills,
quacks and tweets,
and a thousand more sounds
that don’t translate well into English.

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for songbirds who welcome the sun,
and owls who bid it farewell,
hens who announce their eggs
with victorious squawks,
and geese overhead
heralding a turn of the seasons.
These feathered noisemakers
with dinosaur toes
bless me with all their bird talk.

Starling

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Starling

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for starlings
in shapeshifting flocks
clouds of wings,
or neat rows on power lines
trailing stragglers at each end.

Blessed are You
for cacophony in the pecan tree this morning,
commanding my attention
as I step outside and look upward,
stare until I find movement,
the lean and pointy shape of a bird.

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for the company of starlings
floating and flapping,
unaware they catch my eye
and remind me that You know
each one.
Maybe I, too, can know a starling someday.

Brave Birds

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Brave Birds

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for the dove nest
hidden in the evergreen
by our front door.
Two white eggs
in a thin, flat bed of pine needles.
That nest looked too fragile
to hold anything.

Babies hatched—tiny,
bulbous, ugly—
but I said they were cute
and I meant it.

Blessed are You
for faithful mother and father,
sitting and sitting and sitting,
then feeding and feeding and feeding.
Babies are motionless,
so much so I worry they are dead.
But they grow.
I see mama come;
babies eagerly reach into her beak,
swallowing regurgitated seeds.

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for this brave bird family,
risking life in a tenuous world.
In two months—egg to independence—
they do what took me 18 years.
Squabs are now so fat they fill the nest.
When my own two babies—ages 8 and 10—
begin summer vacation,
the doves will be sporting full feathers,
cooing loudly, and finding their own dinner.
Their bravery, my invitation to life.

When I think of baby birds, I think of robins: a sturdy, deep nest full of wide-open beaks, voraciously devouring worms and bugs. This spring I’ve learned that mourning doves are sloppy nest builders, and they feed their babies crop milk and partially digested seeds. There’s a nest right outside our front door, and this front-row seat has grown in me a new awareness of the hundreds of different birds and nests and babies, near and far, all busy participating in the circle of life this Spring.