Learning to Fly

By John Herlihy

The hatchlings looked at their mother;

She looked back at them on the sly.

The light in their eyes met each other;

Now it is the time to learn how to fly.

The hatchlings gazed around in wonder;

The sky above seemed like distant plunder.

The earth below was far away from their reach;

The eyes pleaded as if their mother to beseech.

The mother left them alone in the nest,

Snuggled together as a bundle of feathers.

Indeed, they saw her fly expertly away

Gone suddenly In sunny and rainy weathers

The hatchlings knew what was coming;

The moment of truth must finally arrive.

Their baby claws still clung to the nest.

“Jump away,” she said, “and you will survive.”

One little hatching was the last to cheep,

The last in the litter, the last to take the leap.

He had seen his siblings step into the breech,

Only the sky as the limit within their reach.

He stood on the edge of his homey nest;

His mother looked at him hopefully, in jest.

“You can do this, you are of my own,” she said.

The little bird understood, as its bird heart bled.

He took a deep breath as he knew he should,

Stealing the life force of air as he knew he could.

He raised his head, as silhouette against the sky;

He opened his feathered wings in order to comply.

At first, he was falling and nothing but falling,

Down into the abyss, his little eyes bawling.

The earth lay lazily below with its inviting lawn;

A little baby opened its mouth in a tired yawn.

Suddenly, the air lifted the little hatchling’s wings;

The bird now an angel whose heart simply sings.

“I can fly mother,” the hatching said,” I can really fly.”

Far below, a child tried to touch the little bird in the sky.