Diligence.
Drooped in drowse a pink-bloomed hawthorne
straddles the scorched wall of noon.
A male blackbird appears skating through floor
scatters leaves, shakes and stoops,
beak stabs, mouth gulps drunk on worm-flavour
and flaps in heat-haze as pluming
upward heavy with extras he air-streams away
and swerving wildly finds roomy
nest site where, still tied three tiny beaks raise
hungry gapes greedily for soon
each work-riddled parent must take wing again.
Feeding means frenzy until young feathers form
and thick hawthorn shelter encases
live pickings for chicks with an ever-open maw.
Such is the diligence bred in nature
that avian pairs make endless forages to satisfy
offspring who, blindly helpless
must on inbuilt parental responses humbly rely.
Is there in this a hidden lesson ?