The News from Manhattan: Sunday, July 26, 2020

Our mockingbird family has flown
And we sit on the terrace alone,
Missing our neighbors,
Their parenting labors,
Who worked without rest
Bringing food to the nest,
To the squawks and squeaks
Of wide open beaks.
We wish them well off on their own
But wish they would write us or phone.



A perfect summer evening with neighbors on the terrace, a little breeze, a few choppers in the sky, the city peaceful under a half moon, light conversation about this and that, nothing about him, talk about daughters, the pediatric psychiatric nurse-practitioner, the mathematician niece expecting a baby, the resumption of baseball, a trip to Maine, music, the difference between Dairy Queen and Mister Freeze, and how much we miss our birds, how whenever we came outdoors the parents took up defensive positions and threatened us. Do a mockingbird couple and their kiddoes stay together when they flee the nest? Might they return? We don’t know. We never fed them, not wanting to make them dependent, but we miss the shrieking and the chittering of the babies. Yes, I know — life must be awfully easy for you guys if you miss a bird family — well, not necessarily, but anyway we do. It’s a dangerous world, hawks and cormorants zooming overhead. And God’s eye is on the sparrow and we know He watches us.

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