Broken Wing

April 27 2017

Cradled in my hands

the injured bird went still.

The antelope comes to mind,

taken by a pride

when the fight goes out of him.

A lioness

crushing his neck,

teeth tearing

at living flesh,

his disembowelled entrails.

As he lies, unresisting

unblinking eyes glazed.

Do we all surrender, in the end

detach from pain?

So it's fight or flight

then giving in.

But how this came about

by evolution

makes no sense,

except to imagine

that nature has no use

for suffering without purpose,

that even in death

the universe is merciful.

A consoling truth

for those who believe in a higher power;

but for me

one more of life's great mysteries

I cannot explain.

The give and take

of finely-tuned touch, unconscious muscle

as I loosely cup the bird,

adjusting to its trifling mass

and sudden stirrings;

the fluttering of its tiny heart,

the unnerving lightness

of airy feathers

hollow bones.

Neither crushing

nor letting go.

A broken wing might heal

if it isn't killed by fright.

Or the shock

of a wild thing caged.

Would I choose death

over confinement?

                             Will this bird, biding its time

muster the will,

gathering strength

to fly again?

I've probably been watching too many nature documentaries. But this recurring image is really quite striking: the prey animal, lying calmly, as it's being eaten alive. We identify with the victim, and there is a consolation is seeing that it appears, however incredibly, not to suffer. But the biologist in me can't understand this. Because evolution operates by survival and reproduction: yes, playing dead might in very rare cases help an animal survive; but vastly more often, a prey animal is certain to die, so those genes that confer this singular mercy will be lost, not inherited. How, then, could this great rush of terminal endorphins ever be selected for?

No, I didn't rescue an injured bird. And have never held a living bird in my hands, But I have picked up a dead bird (who had flown into the picture window) and felt the surprising lightness. This poem started with a vague image of a bird in the hand that was used as a metaphor in something I recently read. The source has completely escaped my mind. But I think the author talked about the hands' precisely calibrated balance of pressure and touch, and this somehow stuck with me. Was he writing about a movie director managing his temperamental stars? A coach in professional sports massaging egos? Whatever it was, it was clearly a very effective metaphor!