The Hatchlings

The leaves of summer fill
What, just the other day, had seemed a bare
Wildness of branches shaking in the frigid air.
The world works its green will;

Its humid atmosphere
Summons us to a strident idleness,
Makes warm suggestion even leisure can oppress,
And heaven draw too near.

As if put off by ease
And anxious daily freedom earn its keep,
My daughter hunts for mushrooms where the shade is deep
And breaks the bullfrogs’ peace.

She nets a lifeless snake
And washes clean a clutch of squirrel bones,
Before she dries them in the sun. What nature loans,
She with delight will take;

As in that twilight, say,
When, though the hour was late, the sky shone blue
And she appeared before us all with something new
Discovered in her play.

Her palms held out to share,
She cupped two spare-downed hatchlings like a nest,
Their dark bald heads and bright beaks chirping without rest
In protest at such care.

It seemed then right and fit
To stare upon this gift with fascination,
Before we said, what had been borrowed from creation
Should be returned to it.