thieves and murderers

 

she gently sacrificed the sparrow

eggs under a strawberry moon

to a mother and her baby raccoons.

just cells in shells, nothing

breathing or eating. it had to be

hard for her. so soft,

her critter loving soul will be haunted

until wrens return to nesting

where sparrows strangled their young.

a simple repair, a smaller hole,

there will be wren babies

eating inch worms and slugs,

beetles and bugs.

imagination, her merciless gift

will see them seize the eggs,

hear them crack the shells and lick

clean every crumb with tiny raccoon tongues.

invasives, she knows, those

house sparrows, but they’re birds,

not yet birds, but on the way to be

someday with pumping hearts and mating

calls, sunwarmed feathers and puddle baths.

maybe if they ate the wrens

to survive like hawks, not just to steal a nest

like soldiers.

Don Farrell

Don Farrell lives in Cambridge, MN with 3 sons, 2 dogs and other critters where land transitions from forest to prairie. He holds a monthly open mic at The ARC Retreat Center in Stanchfield, MN and a bi-weekly zoom poetry critique group. He has a full-length book accepted for publication by Fernwood Press. He has poems in Bodega Magazine, Thimble Literary Magazine, Exist Otherwise, Shoegaze Literary, Brushfire Literary Journal, Five Fleas, The Orchard Poetry Journal, Suisun Valley Review, Men Matters Journal, Willows Wept Review, Harrow House Journal, Mason Jar Press, and New Square of Sancho Panza Poetry. He hopes to leave this planet without getting what he deserves.