Dead Bird

"Simply"

I found a little dead bird early last week under the tall window just to the left of the front door.

It wasn’t clear how it died—I hate using that pronoun to describe any being that lived. My guess was an errant flight against the window. What do I know? It might have landed to sing and simply . . . died. Don’t we all?

The bird looked particularly tired, with its wings neatly tucked in by its side. My dog ignored it and focused on our path to his after-walk treat; my cat might have acted otherwise.

I forgot about the dead bird until there it was the next day. It hadn’t moved.

I used a clean hand towel to handle it. It was so light. I left it to rest in a safe place in a neighborhood full of foxes and hardly free of hawks. Had I been younger, I would have buried it in a box. Had “it” been a cat, I would have taken it to a vet to be cremated. Had it been a dog, I would have been completely lost and failed. But I did neither of those things.

I wonder now whether the bird landed to sing.

The garbage truck made its usual rounds last Friday.

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