This Is Not a Poem -- It's a letter to a daughter or notes for a memoir

The days have been bright & breezy
& cool in the late-afternoon shade.
The birds have been rapturous
& varied at your mother's feeders.

Among the visitors, the raucous sparrows,
unruly & unkempt, are my least favorite.
We hear them gather before they
pounce on the feeders, winging straight
over the lattice fence & into the red-bud
or the golden rain-tree.

They gang-up on sunflower seeds;
they are the little
bullies of the bird playground.
Thankfully, your mother feeds
other, more alluring birds.

The mourning doves congregate in their head-
bobbing pairs, woo-woo-wooing as they land,
one, two, beneath a feeder.
They’re content with droppings,
the countless husks & seeds that
fall on the grassy hill.

Rose breasted grosbeaks arrived last week
& seem to be gone already -- like listening
to a White Stripes song too young.

The cardinals make a racket, too,
but tastefully & from a distance.

(I told your mom
the cardinals of my boyhood
sang, Murray, Murray,
Murray-Murray-Murray
in the hardwood forest
around the house. She said:
They don't seem to say that now.)

The blue jays are the serious
bullies, really, of the feeders,
especially the tray feeder
hanging in the dogwood out front.
They arrive like pterodactyls,
scattering the carolina chickadees,
the house finches, & the wren.

Only the hummingbirds, sipping your mom's
sugar-water, ignore the squawking jays –-
the hummingbirds & that cantankerous woodpecker,
who bitches at me from Mr. John's ancient live oak
every time I walk into the front yard.

I dropped a few limbs today,
from the elm behind the house
& the hackberry along the driveway.
One branch fell & nearly crushed the young
sunflowers growing beneath the tall
feeder in the dogwood. I threw the limbs
over the fence on the hill behind the house,

& not long after --
while I raked magnolia leaves
from the east side of the house
where we cut down the old magnolia –-

I heard seven pistol shots beyond the fence,
9-millimeter. Probably kids
blasting into the berm above the house,
where the ash and water oak shade
that piece of Main Street blocked off
ten or more years ago. I was thinking

about the time some kid -- I presume –-
tried & missed shooting Blue,
& the round came down through that high window,
lodging in the wall above the living-room couch.
We had just returned
after picking you up from school.
You left your book bag on the couch
before going to your room.

I know you remember.
You were in tenth grade,
I think, at Warren Central, right?

Anyway, I thought about all that today,
but only briefly & without rancor.
How could I feel rancorous this day,
when I saw the neighborhood swainson's hawk
dipping first one, then the other
outstretched wing on a wind
I couldn’t feel but only see
at the swaying pine-tops?

She was hunting up there,
looking down with those eyes.

Three mornings ago, as I backed down the driveway,
she swooped over the side lattice fence
& over the hood & windshield of my car,
& I thought, Those little birds better watch out.

This morning, I saw her take a baby bluebird
from the grass beneath a red oak.
She flew over me, & if I reached out my hand
I could’ve touched that young thing
screaming for its parents
chasing the hawk.

This afternoon,
I found eight mockingbird feathers
beside the japanese maple
your mother and I planted two days ago.

How can I help but love
such a hungry bird?