~
MOURNING OUR DEAD
A brown and white speckled egg lies
broken on a grey wooden deck.
It is about the size of a thumbnail.
The pale yellow embryo landed
at an angle, its tiny feet
tinged with orange. Its nervous mother
had been squawking at passersby
from a nest perched on a drainpipe.
The day began with optimism
as the sun rose over the pines
and the creek water reflected
its rays as if someone had tossed
votive candles from its curved banks.
A meadowlark’s weet weet weet mixed
with a sparrow’s see see, reverent
as a Shacharit prayer.
It’s not just coronaviruses
that play havoc with expectations.
Sometimes hope is all we can muster
even in normal times. As if
reasoning matters when a nest
empties without warning. Against will
but not against odds. Morning air
is warmed by sunshine. A child dies.
~
Mary K O’Melveny began writing poetry after retiring from a long career as a labor rights lawyer. She lives with her wife in Washington DC and Woodstock NY. Mary’s work has appeared in many print and on-line journals and on blog sites such as The New Verse News and Writing in a Woman’s Voice. Mary is a Pushcart Prize nominee and her poetry has received other award recognition. She is the author of A Woman of a Certain Age and MERGING STAR HYPOTHESES (Finishing Line Press 2018, 2020) and co-author of the anthology An Apple In Her Hand (Codhill Press 2019). Mary’s collection Dispatches From The Memory Care Museum is forthcoming from Kelsay Books in 2021.