Empty Nests

For [Assyria] says:
“By my own power I have done it,
and by my wisdom, for I am shrewd.
I have moved the boundaries of peoples,
their treasures I have pillaged,
and, like a giant, I have put down the enthroned.
My hand has seized like a nest
the riches of nations;
As one takes eggs left alone,
so I took in all the earth;
No one fluttered a wing,
or opened a mouth, or chirped!”
--Isaiah 10:13-14

The eggs hear heartbeats thunderous
beneath their mother’s breast,
then silence falls and plunderous
a hand sneaks to the nest.

No one is there to raise a cry:
The silence stretches on.
The nest lies empty to the sky
and all the eggs are gone.

Who will console the mother bird
in torments of her grief?
Will all her anguish go unheard
or justice flee the thief?

Look down, O God, on empty nests;
look down on thieving hands.
You know the sorrow in our breasts
and weeping in our lands.

Swoop like a hawk upon the snake
who steals the helpless ones.
Strike for the shells that early break,
whose fledging never comes.

Pierce with your talons death itself
and spread your guardian wings
over the young ones in their shells,
over all weeping things.

Zenaida macroura. Tucson, Pima County, Arizona, USA. 25 May 2008. By Katja Schulz from Washington, D. C., USA - Mourning Dove Nest With Eggs, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49988085