The birds were already there
when I looked up,
the bath in the far corner of the yard,
half in light, half left out of it.
A wren came first.
Small. Quick.
Easy to miss if you weren’t watching.
She dipped, drank,
then flicked water from her wings
like it didn’t belong to her.
Then the mourning dove...
gray in that way that takes in light
without giving it back.
She stepped in slow,
not timid,
just used to being careful.
Didn’t drink right away.
Stood there a moment,
as if listening
to something under the surface.
The robin came last.
Not proud,
just certain.
He moved like he’d been there before,
like the day had already made sense to him.
He washed without hurry,
sending small ripples out -
just enough
to bend the light.
For a while
they shared that shallow dish -
no quarrel,
no rush.
And I sat there
longer than I meant to,
coffee cooling beside me,
held by the simple fact of it -
not what it meant,
but that they were there
together.
GBS jr
2025
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