Not on my watch

Musings from late summer on the back porch...

I wonder if a sparrow knows surprise.

I wonder if there is a moment of dread when eagle talons tear into blue wing teal in flight.

Is there pain? Is there a shock system that shuts down

blood flow and organ function, marshaling all available resources to rent flesh, already activating agents to rebuild tissue, eternally optimistic -- until word comes down to quit?

I know crows think. American problem solvers.

I know jays mourn. Pattiann observed,

They screamed with their whole bodies from the branches

of the pine...over the fluff of feathers scattered and drifting

occasionally, easily as dandelion -- all that the cat had left.

I know a mother robin who abandoned her nested young to save herself, I assume for another day of egg laying, this time -- does she hope? -- all will go better for the little ones that must be fed.

I wonder if carolina wrens appreciate the gift of caterpillars beaked to death on brick, then carried, broken, whole, to the nest.

I wonder how neotropical hummingbirds plot their trek to Costa Rica and back, sustained by only sinew, flower fluids, and stamina, to return to this place to fight their others for sweet water.

I wonder if turkey vultures know some sense of exhilaration soaring, unfolded in the universe, high on summer thermals, one of the select few who practice the real birds’ eye view.

I wonder if parent nuthatches and grandparent cooper’s hawks know their boys and girls as successful adults, busily going about their own nest and family building.

And I wonder if robins and cardinals, chickadees and titmice, know the pride of community, standing together loudly warning all neighbors of the barred owl’s ominous intrusion, perching in evening oak within striking distance of many flyers.

I wonder if even one among them intuits a modicum of an awareness of

Not on my watch.

Tom Schaefer

under canopy

22 July 2010

Excerpt from the poem “The Next Story,” by Pattiann Rogers.

From Firekeeper: New and Selected Poems. Milkweed. 1994.

Image of great horned owl: Tim Daniel, Ohio Department of Natural Resources

Used without permission. I hope you don't mind, Tim!