Elegy in Which a Nest Is Found Twice

After the storm I found a nest that fit in my handas if it were made for being found,though reason told me it was not, told me a birdhad woven the grass and milkweed silkwith an urge for home and the eggs it would holdthe way I held the nest, the windhaving shaken it free, such gusts there'd been,such howling—and I'd held fast as my fatherlay dying so as not to let anythingfall—and here this nest had fallen whole.

Three months have passed, and again I've foundthe nest on the sill in his housewhere I left it. Now I think of the fledglingperched on the rim in that instantbefore wings, earth and sky filling its breast,filling the cup of grass and silk not leftempty behind, but taken hold of, and taken in.