ART & POETRY BY PAUL & KATHY BOECHER©

Two lonely hearts once met and at that meeting found,

That God already knew new life would soon abound,

The two began a quest to build a monstrous nest,

They scavenged anything that seemed to meet the test,

This nest awaited eggs, the couple sat and waited,

The dad would find a meal to keep the mom abated,

As mother’s often do, she left her eggs alone,

She had to stretch her wings, but dad would take the throne,

And so between the two of them, a family came to be,

The little chicks sat all alone and screeched for subsidy,

The parents swooped and dove for those within their custody,

Soon they would learn to fly, yet questions still remained,

Would all of them survive, would life still be maintained,

And with each passing day, they left their mammoth home,

With fledgling wings now fluttering, completely on their own,

Yet in the nest on high, the smallest one remained,

Too weak to flap his wings, his strength had all but waned,

But mother’s love endured, she saw to this one’s needs,

She nurtures and protects him, with love she intercedes,

Today that little bird has flown to heights unknown,

Because of mother’s love, he soars now on his own.

My husband spent one year following the nesting of two osprey. He and a small group of men took photographs, wrote about their findings, observed the activities in the nest, and Paul created the above painting to document the daily discoveries. They originally intended to make a book out of their daily meetings, but that never came to fruition. Collaboration doesn’t always work, but we wound up with a lovely painting as a result. The poetry seems appropriate for Mother’s Day.