Bird’s nest
By Olivia Holmes
There is a bird’s nest that was made right underneath the deck at my house. It was made by a robin and rests on a wooden beam.
Once, there were birds in it.
I could look through a crack in the deck and see the mother making the nest. Then I watched her sit on the tiny, pale blue eggs that could fit in the middle of my palm. Four of them; there were four little, blue robin’s eggs that hatched into four little robin chicks.
I would look through the crack and see them huddling together, keeping warm, as they were still small and not yet covered in soft, fuzzy feathers.
Their heartbeats pounded against their tiny ribcages so hard that I could see their chests beating up and down.
I would whistle and they thought I was their mother, bringing food, and they stretched their little necks upwards, toward the sky, eyes still closed, showing their blue and purple eyelids. I could hear them peeping, waiting for food to be dropped into their pink, open mouths.
That was two springs ago. I watched them grow feathers over their yellow, down ones. I watched them open their eyes and fly away. It really was an amazing experience.
I wished they would stay, but I figured mother robin would be back next year to lay more eggs. But she wasn’t.
Two springs have passed and now I stare up at the mangled and deformed nest from underneath the deck.
It’s sad, really. The once lively and inhabited nest now just sits there and rots away. I look at it and think about the metaphor in this. It’s just straw and grass and moss, but it was wonderful when it served its purpose, and now it’s useless and just sits. Now I find myself with a sad story of life and living: the lonely, empty, abandoned, scraggly bird’s nest.
