i traveled a river of concrete in a machine, you traveled an ocean of air in a machine, babies crying, inconsolably, you said i said, eustachean tubes aren’t meant for 30,000 feet.
i am not meant for this, neither are you, neither are they.
not the opposite of joy on Christmas eve but the false pursuit of it whatever is actually contrary to it even if we don’t know it when we see it. even if we refuse to know it when we see it.
if i allow myself to cry, he will see it on my face.
one-half of a medium-boiled large egg, super finely diced
3-4 sardines canned in water, with all the bones and skin, gingerly rinsed under a thin stream of tap water, to remove excess salt, laid atop a paper towel to passively drain the water, then, finely chopped
mash sardines and egg together, then slowly add up to 1 teaspoon of unsweetened organic apple sauce,
the mash should be integrated and mostly smooth but not too wet or runny
store in sealed glass container refrigerated for no more than 2.5 days
(increase to whole boiled egg and full can of sardines and extra applesauce — and increase mash chunkiness as bird grows)
to feed:
fill a plastic drinking straw with the food, by pumping the straw up and down into the mash with suction
warm the filled straw in hand while wearing a disposable glove to bring the mash close to room temperature
gently but quickly eject tubes/ribbons of mash into baby bird’s mouth as she gapes for food - like toothpaste on toothbrush almost; it’s daunting at first; she is so demanding! so loud! so urgent! so hungry!
she will stop gaping when full
wash straw and reuse (DQ & Five Guys straws are wide, flexible and work best)
repeat feeding every half hour, then eventually every hour or so, about 300 times over the course of next three weeks
to thrive:
during that time create and whistle to her a short, 3-4 note, unique song to recognize your voice
love her, talk to her, encourage her, comfort her, and hold her, carry her outside to see the world she will soon enter
also during that time: bring her small worms, slugs and insects to taste and/or eat / you will need to manually reduce them to be digestible for her, at first
then teach her to forage and hunt for them herself; she will use her beak as a shovel to unearth them and poke at and sever them with her beak; watch her back while she’s busy doing this - be her wingman!
she will teach herself to bathe and sun, fluff, dry and preen one day she will hop, sputter-fly into the grass, into the garden; into the bramble or tall grasses
then, she will fly and soar - high into the trees, beyond your reach, sight or protection
you will worry about predators and bird bullies, weather, machines, injury and hunger
you will listen for her voice and whistle and call for her
sometimes you will hear her; but she will always hear you; she knows your face, form, voice and song
she will still come home for supplemental feeding
she will still come home to sleep in her nest box inside the barn overnight because being a baby bird alone in the world - is exhausting
being a mother bird, even moreso
she will come back, again and again.
she is just pure joy. she is pure trust.
you are so lucky to have experienced her first weeks of life
you rescued her; but she has restored you, in fact.
please know, always remember, and never forget:
every bird you see, every wild mammal you see, they all initially survived because of a very devoted mother
what radiance i’ve possessed in your eyes has naturally dimmed after these 30years; and so has yours — in mine, these last five, if i am being truthful, which you know me to be, guttingly
once the solar star, now, a mere lighthouse on the other’s shore,
do you still wonder what you are?
you, my sonlight, are still golden, burning hot and bright,
but these blue lenses of ours,
and these blue talks of ours,
reveal we are animal, elemental,
sometimes too human, and fragile.
only, you fail to acknowledge another possibility, another cosmic continuum.
from Chicago, annoyed, yet exhilarated while i was full of held tears, a mother, trying to mother a boy, on his bold edge of two decades of life
2014 was a rough half year to June
we lost our first person to fetanyl but he would not be [y]our last
i witnessed your grandmother’s January bitter coldness for the second time and i still have a lasting bone chill from it
by the time you drive across the Mississippi River, you have forgiven me but i, you — even before you drove out of our alley, we keep forgiving one another, me and you.
a couple of weeks later,
i am with our first, sweet dog in our Sun-filled back yard, as he is given a gentle, good death / we have shared so many firsts, but this,
i/we do without you; 17 years — ours, for sixteen — this loyal and strong dog that you chose on Mother’s Day weekend on LaSalle Street
how can it ever be a home again without you, without him
the author and her son in the Great Room of the Old Faithful Inn, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, June 2004
a lucky reservation for one night of lodging and a late dinner — made by telephone months earlier, but just barely early enough,
choosing sweaters to wear to dinner as the June Sun finally sets / you and i match in black cotton ramie, always and still, my favorite
hungrily watching the clock, in the Great Room, nestled in the same chair by the colossal fireplace
we’d been camping the previous night, in a thunderstorm and downpour at Bridge Bay, where we awoke to a bison’s grunting, and their immense shadow upon our tent; we shared our griddled french toast breakfast and percolated coffee with a couple in a VW camper, who were no doubt younger than you are today in June, 2024
with our “Wildlife of Yellowstone” booklet, we identify an osprey perched above our heads in a pine tree as we pack up our camp — a first, for each of us
mudpots, fumaroles, bison herds, bison “jams”, pelicans, waterfalls, canyons, elk, towering basalt columns, sulfur, a wild river, geysers, marmots, hot springs — and Morning Glory Pool.
so many firsts, for me and you.
your shining, smiling face[s] around that table by candlelight
what a gift, what a day, what a dream to share this exquisite meal with you, two, in such a truly wild place
is this real life?
the clink of silverware voices and laughter centered — and from every direction,
the limineen | earthling, poet & crone 