Grandparenting the Loons

Like grandparents, our own children gone

and with them, theirs, we watch from a safe distance

the young loon grow from downy hatchling

to brown-plumed chick, learning

to swim and dive and fish and feed,

fend for herself, and we anxiously eye the eagle

perched above the lake watching, too,

our chick and the squawking diversion

of larger loons, the raucous call of her parents,

sheltering her as we did our own, readying them

to take their place in a troubled world, surviving

and making their own journeys, ocean-ward, without us.