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A lesson delivered to my doorstep
Yesterday when I came back downstairs for breakfast after putting in a few hours of work — I found a bird. On my welcome mat. Dead.
I wasn’t sure he/she was dead, as I know they can occasionally just knock themselves unconscious by flying into glass windows and doors. There was no tell-tale smudge on my storm door — but I was certain that had been this creature’s undoing.
I donned some gloves and gently moved the bird off my mat and under some nearby bushes — just in case it came to. How does one check vital signs on a creature you can hold in the palm of your hand? My Human nursing skills does not extend to many other species — sadly.
At the end of my workday, I went on a walk — a long walk. The bird lay just exactly where I had placed him/her. Not unconscious, certainly deceased. As I walked I mourned for The Being, I prayed for its life force and offered an apology to The Universe for the role my Humanness had played in its demise.
After I had found the bird that morning, I had closed my front door — to ensure there would be no more casualties. In the nearly ten years I’ve lived here, seven with a storm door, no other bird has flown into any glass structures.
When I returned from my walk, I took the bird’s body into the woods abutting my…
