We are planting a garden again. I see all the little things I have missed. The wonder of growing and eating your own food.

I’m thinking about all of this as Evan is about to venture off on his first ever camping trip with his school class. They are sixth graders now, and they will stay three days at a beautiful campground inside the Sleep Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

I know they are well-planned. I know his teacher is diligent and careful, but still I worry about all the things mothers do. He will be sleeping solo in his tent for the first time ever.

I started this poem a year ago and today, thinking about my own baby bird, it seemed the right day for reworking and finishing it.

I know it will all be ok. I know my baby bird needs to test his wings and fly, so a-camping he will go. But in the meantime, I’ll pray away the murder of crows.

Put the basil in the oil

and simmer gently. Breathe in
the rich aroma of earth and
life beckoning. I reckon 
I’ll stop a while and savor the scent.

While I waited, the garden 
started to green; flowers
popped up on strawberry plants; 
and the bumble bees buzzed 

around blooming flower pots.
Deck sweeping becomes my 
new daily chore—helicopter 
seed pods, my arch rival. But

the scent is right for mid-spring
and a robin has built its nest
atop the back porch light. She 
guards her eggs carefully from 

the fence post, flying at anyone 
who dares to walk too close. 
Most mothers are alike, you know, 
let a stranger even look too long 

or wander dangerously close, 
and you’ll see us fly off 
with beaks pointing like a sword, 
dive bombing the noted offender. 

But what if the offender 
looks like a bird? 
That’s the real danger—
Crows can be tricky.

My son told me that the murder 
of crows  are back again 
this year in Chicago. Seems to me 
a fitting thing for this year.

So what about that murder 
of tricky crows? Well, doesn’t
that just muddy the waters?
Bring on the mud daubers I say, 

because they muck around 
building their nest from spittle 
and dirt, never bothering anyone 
unless provoked, and then, 

oh! Oh and then those daubers
reveal the truth in the saying,
“Float like a butterfly 
sting like a bee!”

Basil and gardens and earthy scents;
birds raising families the best way 
they know and murderous crows 
ruthlessly cutting them down.

What shall I do with the madness?
When all I want is the bounty
of summer in the middle of drought—
in the middle of monsoon rains.

After the babies have hatched 
and grown feathers of their own, 
they fly up and over the garden wall 
and into the wild open spaces.

The danger of crows prevails, 
but I wonder how they will know 
the rich aromas of life on earth
beckoning them to explore

I wonder how they will grow 
and plant and rise up;
how they will be strong 
and wary and yet somehow 

wiser than those who came before?
Please dear God, let them
be wiser than those who came before.
Let them be wiser than I.

—by Carla Jeanne Picklo Jordan