CARDINALS

When maple orchards towered aloft,
  And spicewood bushes spread below,
Where skies were blue, and winds were soft,
I could but go —
For, opening through a wildering haze,
Appeared my restless childhood's days;
And truant feet and loitering mood
Soon found me in the same old wood
(Illusion's hour but seldom brings
So much the very form of things)
Where first I sought, and saw, and heard
The cardinal bird.

~William Davis Gallagher

I watched her as she
built her nest, flying off and
back to  my favorite tree.

Three little eggs she
hatched and raised and
I with a front row view.
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