Mary Frederick Ahearn

Providence

There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come.
                                 – Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2

Walking out early in the cloudy, rain-to-come morning, I think what a painter could do with these colors – the brilliant yellow of wild mustard in the spring green field under a low, slate gray sky. Musing on this, I glance down to see a small broken egg. One half is missing but this remaining half is a glossy porcelain white, empty; some songbird's lost future, now a crow's meal perhaps.

I move on, then return to place the egg in a patch of violets and last season's oak leaves, a new nest. Soon the rain will cleanse it.

grasses
covered with fallen petals
sparrow song