In heavy downpours, I think about the cardinals,
whether their bark-strip-and-twig-nest
lined with vines and grass is tucked
into dense shrubbery or under a branch.
Inside my home, I am dry as wind pounds water
against window glass. On these nights
of predator dreams, when my son sleeps beside me,
stretches his long body across the bed, whacks me
in the face with his arm, I roost here in my room
with shadows of clouded moon, hazy streetlights,
wait to fall back asleep. The mother cardinal
dreams that her red beak snatches a beetle
from grass. As she flies it to her babies,
beetle legs wiggle, tickle the back end
of her throat and it escapes. She dives after it.
Then, in her dream, her babies, pushed
from nest by a Cooper’s Hawk, fall
into an abyss. She dives after them, wakes,
brown eyes outlined by a tightly knit
raised black circle, one on each side
of her head, both open now.
Her babies twitch beside her.
If I found a hatchling on the ground
fallen from its nest, I would pick it up,
careful, with oven-mitt hands
even though it is an old wives’ tale
that human touch will repel bird parents.
A cardinal would not reject her babies.
Surely, the name wives tales is a misnomer.
Many old wives are mothers
who would not leave their babies
but sing to them twenty-four different songs,
lullabies, and serenading ballads,
of crack of seed in beak, drip of rain.
First Published in Pinesong, spring 2022- Honorable Mention for the Mary Ruffin Poole American Heritage Contest.