I wished I had wings today.  I wanted for a lot of things this week.  But the world wasn’t operating on Polly-Time.  Everybody has their own time, and schedules, and clocks.  The trick we all need to figure out is how to harmonize our tick-tocking.

But back to the wishful wings.  I didn’t need them for the whole day.  Three or four minutes would have done it, you see.  So as it happened…..I had the dogs out in our “new” yard down the street.

A bird flew right by my head.  Maxine & Frances gave a barking chase.  Then, at once, France stopped midstep, turned around, & sprinted right past me in the other direction.  That’s when I spotted them:  Two baby, baby, baby birds, lying on the ground.

Frances scooped one into her mouth and began to hit stride.  “Frances. NO. Drop it.  NOOOooooo France. DROP!”  What a good girl she is.  She stopped.  And pretty dang gently……spit that bird onto the mulch.

As she sputtered out the fledgling, she glanced sideways at me and I swear she was grinning.  She looked just like the Weight Watcher Lady, with her head in the icebox… spoonful of cookie-dough ice-cream in mouth.  “Not on my diet, right Mom?”  “That’s right Frances.  Not on your diet.”

I retrieved both dogs, and took them to the house.
The little birds were both still alive and Mama Bird was visibly upset, but lurking about.  I got some gloves, and a box lid, and moved them to a bit of shade, in hopes the Mother would save the day.  I wanted wings right then, so that I could fly to the top of that Palmetto tree, and put them back in the nest.  It wasn’t so.

I went back this evening to check on them.  Both baby birds, were hovered together….as closely as they could get to one another.  Yes, they laid there in the corner of the box lid…. dead.  I stood there alone……. staring at those lifeless birds in a state of despondency, and began to cry.  I’m not sure why it struck such a nerve, as it did, but I cried sharply.

I know it is just the way of the world.  Not so much on Polly Time.

“He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche