Lonesome

Lonesome

I was at our kitchen table where a just-hatched bobwhite quail,

the size of a ping pong ball, bounced

among cereal boxes and candle sticks.

Our father grinned at our surprise

when it hopped from his large hand toward us.

And my older brother was there. And my younger brother was there.

And we will remember it, all our days:

that we were children

with a father who filled the end of the kitchen, one cold spring,

with incubators and hope. Who set his alarm to awaken in the night

to turn eggs carefully on warm wire shelves,

behind a door he insisted we do not open.

Who built brooders from old apple crates and storm doors,

rigged with red lights, caged in old bent wire

to protect his hatchlings from the draw of heat.

It was 1973. We do not know yet what will happen.

But we will always remember this breakfast.

And we will count among our family members

one small bob white quail

that our father named, “Lonesome,”

because it was the only one of 24 tiny eggs to survive

the complicated task of incubation,

and the precision of day 21: pecking its way,

first, through the air sac for oxygen,

and then around and around,

working its way into our lives.

We will ourselves, in years not far away,

begin our own hatching.

We will find the air to change,

opening doors we will be warned not to open.

And we, too, will be lonesome.

And we will wonder if we can survive it.

And, also, we will be just fine.

Kate Young Wilder