Note with the Gift of a Bird's Nest

We watched them weaving it, pulling our long strands

Out of the hairnet hung on a bush, the bushtits

As small as wrens, mixing our mingled combings

With moss and spiderwebs they'd gathered while clinging

Upside down, chirping in wind and rain.

We should have been ashamed of ourselves at such

Barefaced sentiment, a Victorian notion

Fit for the Mauve Decade when human hair

Was braided and crocheted in doilies and bracelets,

Framed around Loved Ones, plumped into doll cushions,

Kept cool in the bosoms of pale ladies' lockets,

Or curled in the gold nests of gentlemen's watches.

But those two tiny gifted completely

Admirable birds, day after April day,

Kept threading my silver threads among your gold,

As embarrassing as the very idea

Might sound in years to come or decades to go.

They hatched eight young ones in this rainproof lovely

Hanging basket, surrounded by part of us,

Not worried at all, all summer, by our poor taste

Or literary lapses like this in which I can say

By the hair of our heads and the work of their beaks,

I love you.