(for Nikki)
.
I see joy.
See how you have expanded
until you’re exploding with all
that you’d held tightly
contained, buttoned up?
I see confidence.
See how what was timid
and tentative
now twinkles with the knowing
that you are amazing?
I am so proud
of who you’ve made,
you.
Each year a goose takes roost in
the osprey nest platform above the mill.
I suppose penthouse accommodations entice.
The view is lovely there,
and surely she feels superior to her kin
nesting waterfront (though their
recreational opportunities are greater).
Each year, after a month of goose occupancy,
the ospreys return.
I do not know the depth of the tragedy.
Do the evicted geese simply suffer homelessness,
or do they endure the grief of infanticide, as well?
Sometimes our lofty aspirations
are our undoing.
Our hubris is our hamartia,
but each year, in early spring, there’s a goose
in the osprey nest.
.
.
.
.
Remember your Shakespeare lessons? Hamartia is the ‘fatal flaw’ of your personality that leads to your downfall (most commonly in literary tragedies). Hubris is an excess of pride.
Shawn L. Bird 