Agapē, Agape

Baby birds can make their needs known.

Agapē—
What a world inside this word! How 
Are we, who squint and fret, to weigh its worth? 
With our small souls, what can we know
Of the bread and wine appearing in our begging hands, 
The beating wings that shadow us with light? 
All I know is birds—
Like the handful of yellow squawking beaks, wet and unawake 
Within the back-porch nest. All through those April days,
The parents came, and came, and came, with gift on gift
To soothe those helpless hungry hinges. 
And maybe that’s the story. Maybe agapē is
The springtime into which we’re born, the light too bright
For our still-sealed eyes. Maybe it’s the patient parent coming
To where we wait—humble, hungry, all our soul agape.

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There’s just something about a nest that’s miraculous beyond all reckoning. As a volunteer nest monitor (yes, that’s a thing), I’ve seen more than my share of newly hatched nestlings, with their too-heavy heads and tight-shut eyes and always those beaks gaping, gaping, gaping. They don’t know anything, yet, of how they’re provided for—by both the frantic efforts of their parents and the larger story of summer seeds and well-timed rains and the delicate links of an ecological chain. All they know is that, when they reach out, their emptiness is met with loving abundance. I’m finding that to be my own life’s song. All that I know of the God Who sustains me is that He is the One Who hears my fumbling cries, brings me help unlooked-for from beyond the circle of this world, and “satisfies [my] mouth with good things” (Psalm 103:5). May I continue to reach for Him.

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This poem was first published by Clayjar Review, February 2026.