The Nesting

I was making a cup of tea this morning and noticed that a Canada goose has made a nest on the riverbank near where I live.

This is a poem I wrote about watching her build her nest.




The Nesting.


With tender touches she builds her nest,
Amidst thin reeds upon the river bank,
Delicate she gathers each stem and frond,
Placing them with such deft precision,
To form the womb in which her future awaits.


Sinuous as a snake, her long neck undulates,
As she gathers about her the simple things,
With which she builds her rural throne,
As the wings that once lifted her to heaven,
Now rest for a while upon this simple soil.


I watch her as she works and almost weep,
For the whole world rushes past her so close,
Merely inches and feet from where she waits,
As clumsy barges chuff and chug their way,
She grants them no more than her regal disdain.


Her fragility frightens me, she is so close,
To the cars that roar past in constant rush,
For man has crushed so much of this world,
That what beauty remains is forever in peril,
As is hope in a world fed on hate and fury.


Night and day she guards her precious brood,
Beneath star strewn sky and scudding cloud,
As a sphinx she sits in silence, contemplating,
Perhaps all the secrets that God has whispered,
As she flew forth as a pilgrim in his presence.


Who would dare defile such wild beauty,
Sacred in its innocence, sitting in the sun,
Her eyes are closed as she faces south,
Warming her feathers in the wan April light,
As the sacred creation commences within.


I make a silent vow to myself, an oath,
To act if any dare defile her communion,
For in such quiet corners God is found,
Not in carved stone buildings or holy books,
But in a mothers love beside a river bank.