The Work of Weaving

I watch from the window all day long
the weaverbird carrying
long grasses
for its nest. Between its black beak,
the grasses fold in a ring, its weaving
claw, a fragile bone
-pink. Beneath the flutter
of sun-washed wings, the invisible
stir of heated air and the nest,
gathering mass.
Against each paddy
blade, how it lays its brittle skull,
the thrust and pull of its pointed
beak, the green,
apologetic tearing.
In a week, the nest-ring will
hang bloated like a shrunken
squash from the branch,
and a female will lift
its weightless body through
the aperture into the dried-grass
walls and approve
as adequate
the weaving for its eggs.