where the wood is slightly whitened.
Here, I lay down two bright spoons, our breakfast saucers,
napkins white and smooth as milk. I am stirring at the sink,
I am stirring the amount of dew you can gather in two hands,
folding it into the fragile quiet of the house.
Before the eggs, before the coffee heaving like a warm cat,
I step out to the feeder-one foot, then the other, alive on wet blades.
Air lifts my gown – I might fly –
This thistle seed I pour is for the tiny birds. This ritual, for all things frail and imperiled.
Wings surround me, frothing the air. I am struck by what becomes holy.
A woman who lost her teenage child to an illness without mercy,
said that at the end, her daughter sat up in her hospital bed and asked:
What should I do? What should I do?
Into a white enamel bath I lower four brown eggs.
You fill the door frame, warm and rumpled, kiss the crown of my head.
I know how the topmost leaves of dusty trees feel at the advent of the monsoon rains.
I carry the woman with the lost child in my pocket,
where she murmurs her love song without end:
Just this, each day: Bear yourself up on small wings
to receive what is given.
Feed one another with such tenderness,
it could almost be an answer.
"Morning Song" by Marcia F. Brown,