Eared Grebes???

Eared grebes

...  eared grebes, fifteen hundred of them,

Found stunned and dying on the solid ground

They thought was water.
...

The sky, you said, was what confused them— 

Something about the clouds, the storm-light— 

That, and their own certainty as they hurtled 
 
Toward what they thought was only temporary Rest.

Next time we stand under the sky,


Hands linked, marveling at the synchronicity

Of flight, you will remind me that it doesn’t always 

End well, that breathtaking consensus. And I will 


Say, the way I always say, that miracles are rooted

In the trivial, that there is always risk in plunging 

Toward the unseen, that after those birds fell


They were carried, one by one and trembling,

To the real water by a hundred clumsy human hands.

—Marilyn Nielson

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I love Nielson's poetry.  Here she gives us an image of birds hurtling towards what they thought was temporary rest, the unseen, but finding out that decision had different consequences than expected. This brought to mind what happens to so many of us in life. We make choices that lead to our being heaped up somewhere, stunned by the experience. 

Then comes the miracle - people come to their rescue. The rescuers had "clumsy, human hands." The rescue wasn't smooth, but it happened. That's the miracle. 

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I've blogged about other Nielson poems here, here, and here. Nielson celebrates her family and nature on her blog. 

image - pixabay