Birds Are Entrepreneurs Poem by Donal Mahoney

I have an old friend
on a country estate
happily retired.
Decades ago
we were city kids
when that was fun.
Now we settle issues
bedeviling the world
by email.

The other day he said
he had asked his wife
to stop feeding
the birds, something
she loves to do.
No more nectar for
hummers in summer;
no more suet or seed
for cardinals and jays
in winter.

Birds, he said, like people,
have to make it on their own.
Then I remembered when
I went to college, he chose
to jump out of airplanes
during the conflict in Korea.
He came home intact,
built his own company,
sold it for millions,
bought an estate.

And now he believes birds
must be entrepreneurs.
We agreed birds are that.
You don’t see birds
in the yard or street
dead from starvation.
If you find one,
it was likely
killed by a cat.

The birds at his estate
will be fine but what
about his wife, I asked.
What new hobby
might she like.
Maybe a few hours
a week at a food pantry,
I suggested, helping
the unemployed
and the poor.

Because not everyone,
we finally agreed,
jumps out of airplanes
or is an entrepreneur.