Cradled high in the branches
among its spindly, curling fingers,
sits a nest, sunlit,
a rounded fortress
of twigs and feathers
barely hiding three enormous eggs.
Mama bird, brown-breasted
and white-capped,
returns from hunting,
settles her weight, wings
spread,
and shifts her warm belly
against her eggs, her heartbeat
thrumming a lullaby to
her unhatched chicks.
Curled by the root of the tree,
a watchful thick snake
lies patient,
hungry black eyes heavy on the nest,
space in his belly the size
of an egg.
He begins a slow dance,
up, up, up
From behind a neighboring oak
I squint,
and draw my string back,
shut one eye tight,
and release
my arrow.
A quick silent puff
of brown and white feathers
explodes in the air above
the eggs
and moments later I find her,
her brown breast collapsed
in a puddle of red.
Her breaths are quick, her beak
wide open, her throat silent.
I watch until her feathers
no longer heave
and step over her, leaving
three eggs
to the serpent.
Somewhere in the woods
a bird cries out,
lullaby to
an empty
nest.
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