Baby cardinal, outside our house in Saugatuck, MI, late May: waiting for its mother to come back with food. 2 weeks later I'm back and realize it's probably all grown up now.
Think maybe I saw him later.
A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.
And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.
He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,—
They looked like frightened beads, I thought
He stirred his velvet head
Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home
Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, plashless, as they swim.
***
Emily Dickinson (1830–86). Complete Poems. 1924.Part Two: Nature XXIII
