Praise Song for Mother’s Day

by Kathie Collins

Suddenly, I’m the age my grandmother was on her last day.

My children have grown, flown to all the earth’s corners.

This was always the goal, so I forbid lamentation, focus

on flowers instead, and all the minutes I am free to fall in love

with the birds. I didn’t know I’d be like this––buying seed

in fifty-pound bags, pouring it into feeders like milk 

into empty cups. Did I ever long for quiet? Praise be sound!

Mockingbird preaching atop the transformer pole. Praise 

chickadee choir. Goldfinches at day’s dimming, first stars 

in the twilight sky. Praise bluebird’s pew hopping—post to rail 

to post. I, too, am up and down, in and out of my chair, 

checking the nests in the eaves—strawberry finches 

in the left corner, phoebes in the right, big-beaked babies 

crying all day. Nights, they wake me from a recurring dream––

I’m nine months pregnant awaiting that first pang. 

Pain will come, no doubt, but no more babies for me.

A woman’s life begins when the mother dies. I was only ten 

the day I found my grandmother sitting alone at the window, 

nearly breathless, shutters thrown back to watch cardinals 

baptize themselves in the concrete bath. She didn’t turn 

her head to me at the door but kept her vigil. Did I know 

she was dying? I could tell by the way she pressed forehead

to window, her arms like hummingbirds hovering just above 

the chair’s arms, she was already testing the wind. This morning, 

I opened the front door to find four dark-eyed phoebe chicks 

on the edge of their nest. An hour later, they were gone. Praise be 

to the wind. Praise the knowing—when to lift wings, lean in.