Bedtime

I realize, in a sudden moment of satori,

that the fieldfare (Turdus pilaris)

lives just behind the wall at the foot of my bed,

a mere few decimeters from my soles,

where the sloping roof meets the eaves,

on top of a nest box that Anna put up,

and where the fieldfare has placed its nest,

with fledglings almost ready to fly

I lie silently, quieter than quiet,

aware

of the exceedingly shy and vigilant female fieldfare

and her chicks, high up on the wall,

so close to my feet that it almost tickles,

- for though they cannot hear me

through the insulation of the wall,

my sudden realization of their presence

feels like an intrusion,

a betrayal of the natural order of things,

a clumsy overstepping by one species against another;

against a female fieldfare that takes to the air

from thirty meters away if we approach.

And breathlessly, I am taken aback

by the perspective of the fieldfare high on the wall,

in the nest on top of the box

in its three-dimensional space,

where she hurls herself into the air for food

for her brood;

this dizzying certainty out over the garden,

into the trees, through treetops and foliage

in the combined wonder of three movements.

There are many worlds within the world;

now the fieldfare's rushes through my limbs,

as I lie almost ready to fly