justplainbil

Just Plain Bill

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his next again, I shall not live in vain.

I was reminded the other day, of this verse from one of my favorite poets, Emily Dickinson, as a bird that had been nesting in a planter hanging on our porch had fallen and died.

Except for keeping that Christmas planter up quite long beyond the season, making sure our birdbath was always full of water, and filling our birdfeeder daily, I’m not sure what else we could have done to save the bird, but I still had a feeling I could have… a wishing I would have… done “more.”

For many months, we’ve been observing and enjoying the mommy bird’s process of preparing the nest amongst the plastic decorations of holly, leaves, and branches (as well as the lights whose battery had long ago expired). We were delighted when she started sitting on her eggs a few months ago.

Then we watched faithfully...just like the daddy bird worked bringing food and water from our decorative birdbath through the stormy winter months… to when we could hear the little peeps of what we believed to be three or four baby birds.

Three baby birds did recently fly away, and, we’re noticing three new little mouths being fed by both mommy and daddy bird. Exciting!

We did give our fallen bird a formal resting place, where we were reminded about the fragility, as well as the perfect circle, of life.

We are truly blessed!