Chickadee

My daughter sang softly this morning, 
respecting the sleep of others like a little nun, 
whispering her vespers to the dolls she cradled 
on a pillow in the middle of the kitchen floor. 
I savored her quiet, her voice like wings, delicate 
as branch-tips just beginning to crown with buds. 
Her song was the black throat of the chickadee, 
hopping from limb to limb, crested by blue sky 
like all the love that had been waiting 
once I stopped searching and started looking. 
But that’s the way the sky is. Always there, 
but still, a revelation on a spring morning
when all is quiet enough to hear it hum. 
Suppose I had decided to stay childless? 
I'd be listening to the birds on the lines, 
desperate to find anything to make me feel 
as tender as my daughter so easily does,
singing in hushed tones to her monkey and owl 
wrapped in a blanket of old towels.