There’s a tiny bird that visits my yard,

She wakes me with her song that greets the dawn,

Bathing in rain water puddles,

Pecking at the gifts of bread

 

Another winter survived in her solitude,

She doesn’t fly like others to warmer climbs

But faces all the challenges

That this place presents

 

Many hungry years past of noisy nests,

Now only egg shell fragments left,

This tiny bird has lived a big life,

Love came and went with the sun

 

I sit and watch her detail in stillness

And drink in all her beauty,

I don’t want her to leave now

So I hold my breath and wait

 

She hops closer in her gentle curiosity,

Then a twitch, a lean towards and a scare

And she flies away

To her safe branch in her safe tree

 

I feel a sadness and guilt for my lack of patience,

And I sleep that night with a missing in me,

But dawn is greeted by that sweet song again

And once more I am captured by this tiny bird