be careful,
some, caution:
there’s risk
they may imprint on you
and never fledge
be careful,
i, caution:
there’s risk
i may imprint on you
you may imprint on me
and one day, we will know
severed skies / severed from each other
you will fly, and, i will stay
yet, we will never fully-fledge
from
the acute nourishment, the acute hunger
from the enduring gravity
of
each other
recipe and method for feeding a baby starling
recipe:
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
i recently binged the biography:
“The Occult Sylvia Plath: The Hidden Spiritual Life of the Visionary Poet” by life-long Plath scholar Julia Gordon-Bramer
i feel fortunate this book was my introduction to Plath and her poet husband, Ted Hughes— and other significant influences in her life and poetry /
hat tip to my long-time favorite podcast: Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio — created and hosted by Miguel Conner at The Virtual Alexandria for interviewing Gordon-Bramer, because, for the first time ever, i was actually interested in Plath — and furthermore, i unexpectedly experienced a psychic “something” with Plath while listening to the audiobook; this “something” — i want to digest, explore – and possibly explain, in detail, in a future essay //
while i imbibed this book, i was simultaneously raising an injured and orphaned starling nestling — on an intensive feeding schedule — and during this time, i learned from the book, that Sylvia and Ted also attempted to rescue an injured and sick baby bird — but after a week, and upon determining rehabilitation was futile, they jointly and sadly euthanized the bird in their gas oven (i know. wow.) ///
Continue reading “Sylvia Dickinson Edgar Anne Hughes”if you move out of the city
if you move into the country
if you reclaim a meadow
if you plant more than two dozen trees
if you oppose paving the dirt road
if you fill ten bird baths, every single day, until they freeze
if you refuse to mow the clover, plaintain, and dandelion before they set seed
if you sit in silence on the stoop each night, watching
if you turn off every single light before bedtime
if you listen, listen, and listen
if you offer your attention
if you humble your human brain
if you embrace your animal body
if you fall into instinctual kinship
if you are ceaseless in your reverence
if you follow your intuition
maybe the crows will tell their brethren you’re a safe one
maybe the doe will bring her fawns to the salt lick during daylight
maybe the snake will slither under the workbench in the barn while you stand there
maybe the rabbits won’t flee your garden at your footfall
maybe the bats will dance in the twilight sky just above your head
maybe the luna moth will reveal herself to you in that meadow
Continue reading “maybe on the full moon”this was the summer of
broken limbs on trees, animals — and men
this was the summer of
the fuck-it, no-good vegetable garden
this was the summer of
“not this year”, “but, maybe next,” — again
this was the summer of
the i-still-can’t-believe-she’s-dead birthday
this was the summer of
nesting swallows, wicked sparrows, and a fallen starling nestling, whom she fed, and kept in her pocket for future starlight
this was the summer of
hanging baskets heavy with rainbow gazanias and pots full of midnight black petunias — for balance — incessant dead-heading and concrete stains, a small price
this was the summer of
the blue serpent; of serpentine bracelets and of the serpent-printed dress — she to be photographed on this land with the flowers, the dog and the bird, like Frida
this was the summer of
first-realizing she may be the reincarnation of the spirit once-embodied in
Sylvia Plath
an ascetic’s petitionary prayer, answered
for six consecutive summers, i’ve observed barn swallows enter and inspect the barn — diving and swooping in and out, perching and chattering wholly unbothered by my presence — but not until this, my sixth summer, did they finally deem worthy and decide to make their nest on a joist in this old, ramshackle barn
to experience their nesting is such a tender mercy in the time of remote, yet constant virtual witness and heartrage of genocide, of global horrors and famine — and of the daily unnatural disasters and unrelenting evidence of abrupt, irreversible climate breakdown and biodiversity/ecosystems collapse.
O swallows, swallows, poems are not The point. Finding again the world, That is the point, where loveliness Adorns intelligible things
Because the mind’s eye lit the sun.
Howard Nemerov
what radiance i’ve possessed in your eyes
has naturally dimmed after these 30 years;
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.
Continue reading “sonlight [june 2024]”you drove away, West,
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
Continue reading “sonlight [june 2014]”
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,
imply, “yes”.
Continue reading “sonlight [june 2004]”i am on my hands and knees
a belly full of baby,
and so happy,
in our backyard
in June
i am pushing the wrong variety of snapdragons into the soil of the new-to-me flowerbeds — in all my young, botanical ignorance,
on this 3rd day, your ‘due’ date,
they call on a landline
to say to me, “your dead, first father’s second wife is now also dead
… and there is a little money from his railroad retirement pension to be disbursed to you, his only child, a daughter”
the timing feels supernatural.
like a gift, from him — ten years, plus one day, after his death on June 2, 1984 — on your “due” date.
a gift.
we are living friday to friday after just barely mortgaging a little worker’s cottage on Grace Street in Six Corners-Portage Park, nine months ago.
on this 3rd day, your ‘due’ date,
in Streeterville, they say to me, “you’re not even effaced,
let alone opening: go home — but come back soon.”
ultimately, we, me and you, go back in exactly 13 days.
the timing is inconveniently perfect:
The World Cup, biblical Chicago heat and humidity, and the hypnotic O.J. Simpson circus
are not my and your fault;
your father and i bring you home on a sweltering Father’s Day.
you, are now, undeniably a Chicago summer baby and i, was always meant to be your Chicago summer mother.
//
i think about that word — “dilated” retroactively:
how my womb would open and become your light-filled
tunnel, one way — or another
ADDENDUM: the hummingbirds did come back, and as of September 8, 2024 10:00 AM EDT, they are still here.
mid-late april, optimistic
early may, expectant
mid may, consternation
meticulously,
i sanitize the vessels,
bases and perches
soaking and fastidiously brushing the red and yellow flower parts to clean them of all gunk and lodged debris
i employ two, simple, pinched-waist, glass hummingbird feeders //
there are more beautiful, ornamental, more expensive or cheaper feeders available,
but this design functions best/ i am a seven year veteran of hummingbird joy.
age-old recipe for hummingbird feeder nectar:
1 part pure cane sugar.
PURE. CANE. SUGAR.
to
4 parts water.
the end.
not beet sugar, not organic sugar,
nor turbinado, nor raw, never brown sugar
this so very important – other sugars are too susceptible to mold, to bacteria, or contain too much iron in the form of molasses.
pure, white, refined and granulated cane sugar, chemically and nutritionally, most closely approximates natural flower nectar
never ever, use store-bought nectar mix* or pre-mix*;
*and when in a store that sells that toxic shit, bury the packets or hide the bottles behind other merchandise on the shelf — just as when i spot Clinton, Kissinger, Amy Schumer, Dubya, or Sheryl Sandberg non-fiction fictions on the shelf at bookstores or big box stores — i flip that tripe backwards and upside down
age-old recipe for hummingbird feeder nectar:
1 part cane sugar
to
4 parts fresh water,
i use pristine well water, here: i am so very fortunate: no chlorine, no fluoride just elements and minerals, no water treatment except for a sediment filter
these two simple ingredients vigorously shaken together, not stirred/
just like my homemade margarita with ice
in the same one-quart glass mason jar
i check the feeders
throughout the day
i obsess, i pray, in my own way
first incantation songs
then lamentation songs
a carpenter bee tricks my ear while i am on my knees digging in the garden
was that her? is she back? are they back?
no, that wasn’t;
no, they’re not.
i google:
“do hummingbirds return to the same summer nesting and feeding grounds each year?”
&
“how long do hummingbirds live?
says they call her out by her name
the limineen | earthling, poet & crone 