Once a bird sat on her nest. She had two eggs. The nest was her home. The place she liked to be. She sat all day carefully rearranging the straw and twigs that made up her home. Each twig, each straw was a broken dream.
She would pick up a piece of red yarn and remember her dream of traveling far to the south each winter, like some other birds. But she didn't travel south. She stayed out the freezing winters with her feathers puffed out huddling in the undergrowth where the wind was broken. Sadly she tucked the red yarn more securely into her nest and pulled out a blade of dry grass - yes. This was her dream of sitting on water like some other birds. How peaceful it would be! But the nearest she got to water was to bathe in a mud puddle and ruffle her feathers to frighten off the fleas.
She settled herself further into her cup of dreams. Dreams of fat juicy worms on cold winter days. Dreams of dropping like an eagle from the sky to grasp a warm and crunchy rodent in her talons. Dreams of flying so high that the clouds were below her. Dreams of diving deep under water to spear a silver fish. Dreams of spreading her wings to ride a great pillow of air above the earth. Each dream she caressed and cherished and wove more tightly into the fabric of her nest.
Then one day her eggs began to crack and open. Two wet little naked birdlets struggled out.
``Welcome,'' she said, ``welcome to my nest of dreams.''
But the little birds just opened their beaks.
``Give us food,'' they said.