practice

she watches from the cedar tree
this young and patient chickadee
as older birds flit gracefully
to feeder perch and back; she sees
the deft maneuver each trip needs
to back-flap wings, alight and feed
and then retreat, with precious seed.

she tries it once, her timing’s poor
another lands ahead of her —
she didn’t know to take her turn
there seems so much she has to learn;
this gentle complex aerial dance
coordinated in advance,
no single movement left to chance.

photo by tinyfishy

a hundred trials and now she’s deft;
she picks the seeds with larger heft,
and some she opens with her beak
and masters ‘rap on branch‘ technique
to open others, practicing
eternal, joyful ‘rites of wing’,
as one with every living thing.

each day ‘the monster’ trudges through
and spouts a trove of seeds into
the little plastic cylinders,
then wanders back between the firs
and whistles ‘pseudo chick-a-dee‘
the two-note-falling plaintive plea,
and wishes he could be so free.

our songbird, sated, soars away
and checks reserve supplies each day —
she has a thousand extra stores
in case ‘the monster’ comes no more.
and then it’s time for rest and fun,
to sing and frolic in the sun,
her life has only just begun.

she lives in ‘now time‘, nature’s child,
all is abundant in the wild.  
she lives to sense, to learn, to play,
explore, converse, reflect, convey,
self-manage, love, be present, show
that’s all she’ll ever need to know:
let things pass through,
be one with flow.

for she has learned to ‘know’ her place,
a model now, of Gaia’s grace.