Thump! Working outside, I look up to see a bird has hit the clerestory glass and fallen to the roof. I watch to see how it fares, will it survive. Sometimes they do. Thump! As I watch, BirdTwo hits the same pane and rolls further down the slope. This I haven't seen - two, fifteen seconds apart. They look similar, fall warblers, I presume they are mates. BirdTwo barely moves and goes still. BirdOne moves ever so slightly, pulls in a splayed wing, then rights itself, visibly wobbling on its feet. Call 911! Where's the medic? the trainer? the stretcher? No one shows. BirdOne is on its own.
I check BirdOne every fifteen minutes for the next hour or so. It just sits waiting, turning its head but not moving its place, waiting for healing. It's gone after about two hours.This could be you or me with a loved one driving down the highway, just flying along on a normal day and WHAM! One survives and the other doesn't.
Say the things you need to say to one another. Focus on the things you would miss not the things you would change. Be grateful for each other.
And be careful out there.
1 comment:
Wonderful meditations on this blog, spoken and unspoken.
Have you considered putting some sort of sticker on the window? A good one would be hard to find, but you might succeed. This reminded me of these lines in the first canto of Nabokov's Pale Fire:
"I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane;
I was the smudge of ashen fluff -and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky."
(Hi/bye from Marty Snow)
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