Praise Song for the Redbird Who Has Lost His Crest and the Skink Who Has Lost His Tail

I don’t know why the redbird lost his finery months out of time, but the skink has clearly made a timely getaway, snatching his own life from the jaws (or the claws, or the beak) of lurking death. Was it a hungry crow who grabbed him by the tail? A silent owl? A wily fox leaping in the dusk? I will never know. I will watch as his tail grows back, a miracle of regeneration, just as I will watch the bald redbird grow new feathers in August, when the molting season comes around again. His poor skull is an unsightly gray these days, but he has not lost most of his boastful colors, any more than the tailless skink has lost his flame-red face, the color of the breeding season. Renewal is a costly effort, exhausting and uncomfortable, but these creatures are going about the work of springtime with all their usual fervor. The skink’s mate has gone off to lay her eggs, as she always does, and already the redbird is feeding babies in the holly tree. I hear them calling him. I see him returning with a juicy moth to offer the loudest one. The one who will not wait.