It’s taken me a long time to write this. I started it because … I had to? Not sure I had a choice in the matter. Just went about the thing. Bit by bit. A strand at a time. Undoing and redoing along the way as needed, as necessary. Trying to use only what was needed for the task at hand. Trying to put everything to its good use. Staying close to it to keep an eye on things. Shooing away distractions as if they were thieves. I guess I just felt that a certain Momma R needed a nest of her own. How did I know when it was done? Not perfect, mind you, but done? Just knew …. 

For the past month my favorite follow has been a momma robin in residency in our backyard. 

Over days, I spent my first morning cup staring out the window. From my downstairs desk I watched as she foraged the decaying woods for nest material, making dozens of return trips from her Home Depot back to a little nook underneath our deck. Not sure she could’ve found a cozier piece of property if she scouted the entire neighborhood. Tucked away, under cover, safe from the elements. 

While I couldn’t find five minutes to replace the light bulb in my daughter’s room that she mentioned a couple weeks ago, this momma built a goddamn castle from thin air right in front of me. 

Bit by bit. Day by day. Working by herself, constructing it from the inside out.

The slower-than-slow-motion progress was mesmerizing. This wasn’t your shoddy construction with a Target sheen to make some quick Air BnB bank. A meticulous craftswoman, Momma R used only what she needed, putting everything to its good use.  At the end of her work day … very little clean up. As one who can’t make grilled cheese sandwiches without creating a Hazmat-grade tanker spill, I found the whole production inspiring. 

Awe-inspiring, to be honest. 

Karry and I marked Momma R’s daily progress as she fashioned her findings into a substantial abode. The finished product seemed cavernous to my denatured eyes. She went way past ‘good enough,’ continuing to fortify it into something the Three Little Pigs could get behind.  

Nature only wants the best for its children, too. 

The nest sat empty for a week or so, which gave anyone who cared to notice (me and Karry, pretty much) the chance to just marvel at its engineering. 

We wondered how long it would be before she laid her eggs. 

Nature is no procrastinator. 

And one day, there she was … perchin’.

Then the next. 

And the next …. 

As magical as the nest-building part was, this was … the complete opposite. 

How boring. 

Her just sitting there, I mean. Probably not boring for her. Probably appreciated the chance to sit a spell after workin’ her ass off. But as a spectator event? Worse than golf. 

I wondered how long she would sit at a time. I didn’t care enough to actually clock it. After all, I had things to do. Bulbs not to change, you know. All I knew was she sat there longer than it took for me to drain my morning cup and return upstairs to finish getting ready for work. 

As one who lacks the patience to hard-boil eggs, I considered Momma R’s sticktuitiveness Olympic-grade. 

She spent so many days atop her nest, I started to wonder if something was amiss. Maybe she laid blanks or something? What I don’t know about nature could fill a lifetime of morning coffee mugs.

Then, all of a sudden …

“Wait, listen ….” Karry shushed me as we were sitting outside.

“You can hear ‘em.”

And, only when I craned my ear, stilled myself, leaned in, could I pick out the tiny squeaks coming from under the deck. Couldn’t see the top of their heads, so deep the bowl of their abode. 

Not sure I’ve ever heard so much life at such low decibel.

We were giddy witnesses.

“Oh my gosh!” I whisper-shouted. 

It’s the kind of thing that brings your Friday morning to its knees. 

___

From there the enterprise became a family affair.

“They’re up early finding worms,” Karry reported the next morning, and right on cue, Momma R Door-Dashed from the yard to the nest with a mouthful. This is also the part of the proceedings where the baby daddy (finally) makes his appearance, chirping in on the care and feeding.

By their second breakfast on the planet, the babies no longer required one to crane one’s head to pick up the sounds. Hungry babies are not quiet babies. 

Looking it up Karry discovered that the newborns’ parental worm delivery subscription would last about 13 days.

When she wasn’t feeding, Momma R. stayed close to keep an eye on things, sitting on the edge of the birdbath in our backyard. Whenever any of her neighbors came too close to her brood, she flew in to shoe them the fuck away. Whenever we popped out the back door, she squawked holy hell in our direction. 

“We know, Momma, we know,” we’d say, hands up to show we meant no harm. 

For the next couple days I took my coffee not at my desk, but outside on the old vacuum-formed plastic bench we keep around back (it’s not front porch material), so I could be as close to the morning headlines as possible. 

Such was my fanboying, last Monday morning before work I sat outside and wrote my sister a long overdue letter.  Spent the first couple paragraphs geeking out to Missy over how much breakfast energy Momma R expended flying up and under the deck, one worm at a time, on repeat. Robbins aren’t hummingbirds, so the controlled hovering and landing is a much less elegant act for them. Lots of noisy flappin’. This part I could relate to. I’m winded by my third trip up the steps carrying in groceries.

Sometimes we take for granted what it takes to put food on the table.

After finishing Missy’s letter I closed my laptop and went upstairs to brush my teeth. By the time I finished my rinse and spit, I marked that, over the past few weeks, my morning buzzes had less to do with how full I filled my coffee mug, and more to do with the few minutes spent bearing witness to a queen’s labor. 

___

But by the time I returned to my downstairs desk and instinctively looked out my window — a span of less than five minutes — it was all gone. 

“Oh, no … ” I said aloud. 

The nest was destroyed … ravaged and resting on the wall. The beam bare except for a few pieces of straw. 

A single smear of red blood on the white wall. 

Instead of going directly outside, I instinctively ran back upstairs to tell Karry. 

“Something happened. Something got the nest. They’re … all gone.”

We ran out the door and over to the wall. Inspecting, Momma R’s engineering masterpiece was picked clean. No signs of life … anywhere. Remnants of straw strewn on the ground. 

It’s the kind of thing that brings your Monday to its knees. 

The night before while taking the garbage out, I noticed a black cat I’d never seen before, prowling up the driveway. Didn’t think twice of it at the time. Had to be the culprit. 

What I’d considered a perfect location was only perfect for a predator, who likely just shinnied up the vertical post directly beneath the ledge and knocked the nest to the wall in one swipe. 

There was simply nothing to say. 

I mean, everyone in this production was simply doing what they were programmed to do. Momma robin. Her mate. The noisy babies. The cat. 

Still, I couldn’t shake the thought all day. Having watched how hard she’d labored, how much time she’d invested, how impeccably she’d performed each and every one of her duties …. 

It made me genuinely sad. 

I suppose it’s a human flaw, to care about such things. To invest so emotionally in something so small. 

The minute we start caring about something outside ourselves …  is the minute we sign up for loss. 

And still …. 

I’m not sure I’d ever found the natural acts of so small a creature so … venerable. 

Just never took the time to notice before, I guess. 

I wondered what she would do next, with no more mouths to feed.

I wondered what I’d do with my mornings.

__

For a while she just went back to work. 

Started re-building. 

But this time it was different. 

Where she had been a master carpenter, this time she was all over the place, haphazardly throwing stuff up on the beam, seemingly not caring if or how much fell to the ground. Where she had hand-picked a single nook as her fixer-upper, now she made piles in several places. There seemed no focus to her efforts. Momma R was now building the way I make grilled cheese sandwiches. 

At the end of the day, there were piles on the ground running almost the length of our patio, which Karry cleaned up (much as she does with me). Eventually, Karry felt compelled to hold a mom-to-mom intervention, moving the pile above the post where she’d built before and shifting it one nook over. She couldn’t bear the thought of nature repeating itself. Even if it meant forcing Momma R to end her spring residency with us. 

I wondered if momma’s programming was insufficient to the circumstances. Like she knew what she was supposed to do for her babies, but didn’t know what to do when her babies were gone. 

To my quite flawed human brain, Momma R’s behavior read as an act of mourning … the way we might lay flowers at the scene of a car accident.

Maybe she was still using only what she needed, putting everything to its good use.

What I don’t know about nature could fill a lifetime of morning coffee mugs.

But watching her, in her mess, making such a mess, gave my lingering bird-sized grief a place to … nest.  At least for a little bit.

The other day she was standing on the wall beneath her work-in-progress, next to where we’d wiped away her babies’ blood. Couple of sparrows were coming around, trying to scavenge some straw for their own nests. She, though, was having none of it. Chased ’em the fuck away. 

And still …. 

A mother’s instincts. Standing her post. Regal as fuck. 

A final, proud act. 

We know, Momma, we know. 

As I type this, progress has been halted on her new constructions. Seems she finally abandoned the enterprise. Maybe the sparrows, or Karry’s nudge, convinced her of what she already instinctively knew. It wasn’t a good place to raise babies after all. 

I hope she finds a better location. Hard as she works, she deserves it. 

While watering last night, Karry noticed that two of her front porch ferns have been commandeered. Nests built way down in. The sparrows, she thinks. Three eggs already in the one. 

Nature is no procrastinator.