About a Bird

The bird is behind the crabapple, to the right of the spruce.

The spruce is sparse of needles and grows crookedly.

Not enough light,

not enough space.

*******

This summer a nest fell from the maple. 

A wonder.

I brought it inside to admire. 

I put it in under a dome of glass.

It became a dead thing

in a museum.

I did that.

I found the bird after lunch, also dead.

*****

The light in autumn is false.

It comes at a slant and casts long shadows that weren’t there in summer.

It makes mirrors of windows.

Birds fly into windows.

These are facts I tell myself.

*****

I dig the hole in the back garden,

behind the crabapple, to the right of the spruce, 

near another bird I buried long ago,

and a baby rabbit found by the back gate in the spring.

*****

The nest is small.

A strip of birch bark spirals down from its tangle of grey twigs.

When I bring it outside, the breeze takes up the strand like a prayer flag.

I lift the bird.

I want to hurry

but I make myself slow.

I feel the still breast.

No frightened, fluttering heart.

I feel the soft yet solid body.

Its oval shape fills my cupped palm. 

I feel its mass.

I look for wounds,

such as a cat might make.

Or a window. 

No blood. One leg awkwardly bent.

What does it mean?

I rest the body into the nest.

The bird would not have lain so.

It would have sat up, tiny legs tucked under its white tummy.

I place the nest into a brown bag.

I need to use the bag.

A temporary buffer between the elements.
Between earth and sky.
Between what flew through today’s cloudless dawn and what lies below.

Between wings that parted the wind and the gravity of a grave.

Do you see?

I put the bag into the hole. I do not pause.

I shovel on the displaced dirt.

The whole is covered.

I put the shovel away.

I walk into the house.

I wash my hands.