Nesting

Burnt orange breast

portrudes like the pride it signifies

amidst a mostly dull grey body built for flight

surrounded by bursting spring nettle green--

a mother bird builds a nest

for her 4 open-mouthed baby birds 

who sing and chirp and demand 

and ruffle each other's feathers

in a tree 

that sits 

right outside 

my kitchen window. 

A week ago, the same day we first caught a glimpse of the nest, word came round that Battle Creek is set to receive state funding for first time home-owners as a way of programmatically responding to Michigan blight. For years as a young girl and then as a budding student of Marx, I watched carefully how the accumulation of personal property resulted in the cage mentality of far too many humans, particularly "trapped" womyn who became mired in their own lifelessness with every passing day of their overly domesticated, gender-rolled lives. For years now as a resident of the state that has the highest unemployment rate per capita of any in the union because the lies of capitalism (which are built on the assumption that ownership of material stimulates a productive economy) staged their most awful theater right here--I'm reluctant to buy a house.  

Momma bird darts in and out of the tree,

exploring the terrain

securing food

returning it to the hungry beaks 

nuzzling the loose branches of the nest

making sure the balance of it all remains.

They are safe. They are fed. Nourished and alive. 

Grounded in rituals up so high. 

Whose work is the work of home-making? Does it indeed include ownership? A stable place? Or is it about collecting what's available in our environments in order to meet the current demands? While acknowledging no one gets to stay anywhere forever? We are all here only for a season, only for a time. What if what's close at hand is all we need in this season? Yet it strikes me significant that there are specific seasons, do or die ones, that require a stability. A staying place.  Where rituals of awakening and resting, preparing and feeding, playing and cuddling, spatting and remaining--themselves--make the home, home. Is it the building? Or is it the rituals? Both/and, I suppose.  

Earlier this morning

my own daughter and I stood beneath the branches

where the baby birds live 

quietly, timidly trying to catch a peak.  

"It's sacred in there, Rory" I said. She got on her tip-toes

and chirped her 2 1/2 year old affirmation 

that always takes on a soprano high note at the end: "yeAH."

Momma bird came swooping in, 

but upon recognizing our presence, flew away

while keeping her eyes entirely locked on the nest.

Think Sankofa and Maternal Protection--with wings. 

 She landed on a telephone wire above us,

watching until we decided to move along. 

I felt for her. Wanted to get out of her way. 

To say "Hey--we have no right 

to keep you from your babies,

to occupy this land so close to your home. 

Sorry for the intrustion." 

Instead, I took Rory's hand, 

and lead her to a pile of sticks she'd collaged on the grass--

far enough away that momma bird could return 

close enough that Rory might make the connection 

between her collage of sticks on the ground 

and the mom's labor up above so high. 

Distanced perfectly so that she might see the value of it all, 

how the creativity for it and of it is already in some of us,

before we even know we need it, 

natural, beautiful--

and totally undercompensated.  

The dimensions of our material lives are justice issues. They are. But never before have I been able to witness, both in the world and in myself, the value of womyn's work (which shouldn't just be our work), of the maternal materiality of this Earth and why that work deserves a stable place, a resting space, a home, because the work itself is sacred, eternal and the catalyst for each new generation to recognize its inherent right to the rituals of sustenance, intimacy and beauty that this life naturally affords. 

Maybe I'll buy a house, after all. 

And maybe, just maybe 

I'll paint one of the walls burnt orange 

to honor her.