Three Minute Egg

There’s a reason for the nest.
This summer has been all about the birds.
Commuting across the yard to the studio and stopping almost daily to fill the new feeders.
Finch fights for the thistle spillage.
The brand new woodpecker family insisting on the desiccated critters beneath the pin oak bark.
Blue jay feathers everywhere.
The long vigil over the robin’s nest in the maple tree with super soaker at the ready
to dissuade the squirrels from their blue egg plate special.
Long hot humid days stretching into weeks,
wherein the movement of the mourning dove’s passing wings
was often the only hint of a breeze.

Since we live by a little creek,
they come.
Since I feed them now,
they stay.
And since I am working every day in a tree top studio,
they treat me like family.
The screech owls and the returning Baltimore Orioles
have patterned on to my evening voice as Gulliver and I take our last walk of the night.
And I have a great respect for the pecking order.
The wrens, particularly, have taught me this.

So when I stand in the early morning kitchen
with the refrigerator door wide open
and I reach in for the Omega 3 Organic and ever so fresh eggs…I wonder if, in front of my flock,

do I dare to fry them out on the sizzling summer sidewalk?