Postcards from Paradise, Mockingbird

 I listened to this little tyke chirp for days

Calling his mom to come feed him bugs

I watched him test his wings

Trying to gain height

Too young yet

I watched as he opened his mouth wide

And received all manner of icky juicy bugs

Oh how he loved them.

 

Then I saw a black snake

A black racer that lives in the neighborhood

A frequent visitor to our yard

Chase after this baby mockingbird

Looking for his own dinner

 

Watching out the window, I saw mother and father

Mockingbird

Surround that black, slithering thing

Wings spread

Trying to look BIG and FEROCIOUS

Like  wild, snake-eating beasts

And it worked

Snake slithered under the fence

Baby was saved

Such courage!

Such mother/father love

 

 

 

I could not resist

Crawling behind foliage 

To take his picture

In the place where he tried to hide from predators

(Like me perhaps)

Listening to his mother's frantic chirps to stay silent

Stay still

And suddenly I felt the peck at the back of my head

The sharpness of a wing beating against my cheek

Like a true predator I fled from this mother's wrath

 

Again, such courage by

Mother/Father love

 

 

 

The Mocking-Bird

 

In mirth he mocks the other birds at noon,

Catching the lilt of every easy tune;

But when the day departs he sings of love, -

His own wild song beneath the listening moon.

                                    Henry Van Dyke

 

Linked to more Paradise at:
Rebecca