"The poet is of no party." Baudelaire
The nest outside the living room window
Contained a brood of four eastern phoebe hatchlings
They were getting huge
Stretching their wings
Too scared to leap and fly
One evening we noticed a rat snake under the nest
Right where the shit accumulated in a little chalky pile
About eight feet below where the babies were seated
It’s casing the joint we joked it’s coming back for the birds
We thought we were overestimating the snake’s sense of geometry
But the next night we heard a thump against the living room window
It was one of the babies having fled
And when we turned on the porch light
We saw the rat snake dangled next to the nest
Like a slick black pendant light
Long cord of its tail pressed against the beam
Geometrically to support its weight as it hung there
It was halfway through swallowing one of the hatchlings
The wing poked out like a ragged sail
The rest of them had fledged
To avoid the predator’s jaws
It was one way to learn to fly
*
I had been documenting the birds on Instagram
I felt obligated to update everyone on what happened
Which also felt kind of sad
I had taken a picture of the snake
Dangling there with the bird in its grip
But I didn’t post
I just shared in words
The picture felt too close to something I didn’t want to touch right then
Because even though I am not afraid of death
I have a dumb soft heart
*
Every night when I put my baby boy to bed
In order to avoid being pulled out of my sleep
By the vivid hallucinations I am prone to
Where he’s missing
Or not in his correct location
Or otherwise in palpable danger
I have to tell myself just before I tumble into my dreams
The baby is safe in his bed
The baby is alone and safe in his bed
The power of these words is enormous to me
They let my brain unwind into nothingness
They let me drop into the chaos of my sleep
And let my ears be blocked by the metaphysical sound
Of the spinning plate of existence
Like a sound machine in the baby room
Of the universe where I’m baby
I have to trust that something will let my words be true
Even as the uttering of a statement
Creates also its opposite statement
*
I’m not equating baby birds in a nest to a baby boy in a bed
I’m not equating myself to an instinct-driven adult passerine
And I’m especially not equating all the worst fears I have
To a snake driven by hunger
That would be too easy
And much too hard on snakes
*
Neither rat snake nor eastern phoebe
Is endangered at this time
Neither is facing habitat loss
But as the climate shifts to warmer
The birds will get the urge to nest earlier in the season
And the snakes will shift their energies to nocturnal foraging
To avoid the uninterrupted sun on their scales
And overwarming and the need to move to shade
They will begin to hunt more often at nighttime and the crepuscular hour
Surprising adult birds as they sit the nest
It’s not one influencing the other
It’s that you adjust one setting
And the equilibrium of the whole system changes
Perhaps in this case it will mean additional snakes
And fewer birds who want to use this particular nest
I’ve spent so little time thinking about the settings
And the systems
My own systems
A little shortage here or there
A little change to what I eat
I’m not in the business of strangling birds
But sometimes I can’t find my fake meatballs to buy
Or my husband can’t find his bran flakes and so what
There’s such a variety at the shop that we don’t care
But what careened on earth in order to make it so
Who lost a job and whose crop withered and whose water supply
Was diverted by other corporate interests
I feed my baby avocado for his first food
Even though it’s imported
And out of season besides
*
Eastern phoebes mate for life
Often reusing the same nest
The same pair will return here
To the site of the snake scenario
Maybe the snake will return here as well
To the site of its convenience meal
And I as the audience
May also return
Dread in my eyes
Oh I have such
Sympathy for babies
I find myself sad for them
The one that got eaten and also the ones
That sought cover in the heavy foliage of night
But the snake was also just looking out for itself
And the little birds had to fledge sometime
Why not then said the snake
Why not then