An incomplete list of dead birds I have found:
A headless black and white bird in a pile of feathers on our front lawn
A hawk, half-flattened on the side of the highway
A robin, torn open, in our backyard in Thunder Bay
A half-eaten something feathered, left by a cat in the cradle of our tree
An incomplete list of bird parenting I have witnessed:
A mama robin stuffing stringy worms into her babies' loud and demanding beaks
Adult ospreys teaching their young to fish
Grown grackles teaching their babies to fly
A mother swan removing something from a cygnet's feathers
Adult geese, hissing me away from their downy spring-green flock
These scrappy little piles of bone and feather
Persist and persist and persist and persist
Even though their end may be terrible
And their lives so short
Why do you bother? I whisper to the birds,
Who are busy
Hunting for food and teaching their babies
Building their nests and migrating south
And singing
And soaring
And greeting the dawn.
They do not answer me.
They are busy
Flying and feasting and swooping and sleeping and singing
It is no waste, says the heron, standing still in swift water.
She is so sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment