Madárlátta (Hungarian) This adjective literally means “bird-seen”: it refers to food you took along on a hike, an outing, a picnic, but it goes back home intact, having not been eaten.

As a girl

I found in a fallen nest in the yard

two blue eggs

perfect ovals

nestled in twigs,

and in the twigs

a piece of yellow yarn

and a cheap silver chain

with a small cross hanging from it.

What a bird sees, my mother remarked.

My mother carefully tucked the nest

back into a crook in a branch,

said it is faith and luck 

that saves us.

I didn’t say it out loud but from what I could see,

and mothers.

jks