Cowbird

How to make God laugh?  Make plans.  This seems one more illustration of this.  Think, Catharine:  why would there be one more largish bird left in the nest, without feathers?  One more cowbird for the world.   Not the plan.  Not the plan at all.

The plan

Was to empty the fan duct,

Make it impervious

To re-nesting sparrows.

God laughs at our plans,

Maybe not so much

To make us feel foolish

But maybe

To show us

There is always more

To the story.

My job was to clean out

Old nesting material.

At the end of the wadded grass and weeds

A baby bird fell out,

Naked and the size

Of a mostly grown sparrow.

We put him back,

Moved the task to fall.

Today we realized

It was probably

A cowbird.

We shoved a cowbird back

Into the sparrow*s nest.

Now there will be

One more cowbird

In the world.

Not exactly

The plan.

Still

It matters

To him or her

And cowbirds everywhere.