an epilogue

This morning, the dove left her nest agitated, croaking in anguish. We didn't know why, things had been cooing right along up there in the rafters above the outside deck, wind a little harsh yes, a bit chilly in the evenings, San Francisco and all, but still, a nest, a bird, the loving mother waiting patiently for eggs to break themselves free of their cargo.

But she didn't come back, and it seemed unusual, and so we climbed right up there, hauled up the barstools from downstairs and stood on them and took a peek into the nest. Difficult to tell what was going on there exactly, I couldn't quite get high enough, but it seemed to me, it seemed to me, the little birds had died and whatever was inside the remaining eggs...well, no good news there either. "I think they're dead," I said, "but let's take the nest down and see."

My brother's friend said no, we'd better not, she might come back, and human hands touching the nest would warn her of the intrusion. But the little birds were awfully quiet, the eggs not moving, and we did finally take it down, that nest, took it down and looked and indeed the birds were dead. And the eggs didn't look promising, if there was anything left inside. And I thought, how strange, a mother leaving the nest. It's always the other way around.

But maybe this mother knew there was nothing left there she could do and the grief would be too great, unbearable to just stay put and watch the little ones rot and powder and blow away in the tiniest breeze.

So there was no choice but to leave, to call out wildly in the fog this chilly morning and heave herself out of the nest she'd made, away from the little ones she couldn't possibly resuscitate. No choice but to beat the air in the singular grief of mothers, beat the air with her angry wings and lunge, recklessly and searching, back into the sky.