“Dóchas”

Art Doll by Caroline Bury. 2020

Dóchas (the Gaelic word for Hope) is the gentlest and fiercest of souls. Hibernating all winter until Spring, her eyes open with the first flowers. She will wait for the eggs of small birds to be laid. She watches over them. When a parent bird leaves to find food, she becomes the Nanny Bird, shape-shifting into the forms of missing parent birds, until their safe return. If a predator dares challenge her, she rises up, shaking her stick and screeches a hideous sound to make their spines shudder. She will swiftly move eggs and chicks to safety in her basket, returning them all without disturbing a feather, so soft is she. 

When the returning late parent comes home they do not know she was there, except the eggs are still warm or the chicks are oddly content. Dóchas has gone, evaporated like the morning mist.