Harbour to Shore
The silence in this house has developed a physical weight, settling into the corners where your backpack used to lean against the wall. I find myself standing in the center of your bedroom, the room that once held the chaotic geography of your childhood—the scattered books, the restless energy, the door constantly clicking shut against the world. Now, it is a pristine, clinical space. It feels less like a home and more like a carefully curated exhibit of a person who has already moved on.
I see the robin’s nest in the eaves outside your window, a fragile architectural feat of mud and dry grass. I have watched the mother bird for weeks, her devotion absolute and rhythmic. This morning, the fledglings took their turn. It was not a graceful soaring; it was a desperate, thrashing tumble into the abyss of the garden, a frantic beating of wings against the heavy reality of gravity. I held my breath, terrified they would not catch the wind, that the safety of the nest would be traded for the cruelty of the pavement.
But they caught the updraft. They climbed the air, turning their backs on the only shelter they had ever known to claim a horizon that was never built for them.
The instinct to protect is a tether, but the instinct to fly is a law of nature. I am learning that the most profound act of parenting is the moment you stop being the harbor and start being the shore—watching the vessel pull away until it is nothing more than a dot on the vast, indifferent blue of the distance.
The porch is quiet,
Empty shells left in the eaves,
You are the wide sky.
Post Comments
Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.
Please
Login
to post a comment
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a
Premium Membership.
