In the wings

I watched
like a Rear Window neighbor
watching the apartment building next door,
after hearing a noise
that startled me
enough that I'd consider calling for help,
except that the noise
came from birds in my yard
in anguished cries.
It came from
two blue jays
shrieking,
hovering
like hummingbirds,
wings moving
like someone drowning,
frantically flapping
over a branch
high in the tree
calling a cry
I hadn't heard before
that clearly meant
go away you bastards!

A cardinal
stood on a branch below,
looking up at the action,
passive,
like it was on TV,
like a prim
and judging
neighbor
who is nosy
and not helpful,
while two crows
took turns
rushing toward the jays.
While one barged in
past them
into the darkness of the pine,
the other suddenly appeared
from within,
ignored the helpless jays,
the panicked beating of their wings
and their anxious pleas
and flew off
with a small creature
in its mouth.

I saw.
It was the color of saffron.
It looked like a smoked mussel
I'd served the night before to guests,
but I knew
it was their baby.
The helpless jays,
the usual schoolyard bullies
when they come to the feeder
near the rhododendrons
and push the chickadees away
and flick aside the seeds
they don't care for
in search of the shelled sunflower seeds,
were losing their babies
one by one
to two invaders
who never fed at bird feeders,

I imagined myself going outside,
but couldn't imagine what I could do to
change
the course of nature.
Wave my arms and yell at the scene
twenty feet above my head?
The cardinal just watched
and later told anyone who would listen
about his neighbors
and the noise
and how
they deserved it.