To the kinder Furies

Black-throated Blue Warbler (female). Photo by Jeremy Meyer

At 6:30 in the morning she hears a trill
& we follow to the great-room windows. 
It’s April.  She’s almost five.

I point to the weeping cherry,
to a warbler perched above the pink blossoms.

She’s learned the latches & slides back the pane.

Still baffled by the songs, I rush to crack the book,
find the proper name to pass along. But she feels
the air, wants outside, wants to say hello.

And so, we go to the bird that flies away,
already missed in that elastic moment
when she skips beneath the tree
                      singing la la la la lah,
senses alive all-at-once, arising & nesting
on memory’s higher shelves, given favored terms
for a future I can’t explain, a future in her time
to remember, after we’ve seen the best of it all
if the kinder furies have their way.



Kevin Swanwick, April 2025