Coal-Black Bird - May 11 2022

 

Coal-Black Bird

May 11 2022

Looking back

you're sure it was an omen.

The coal-black bird, circling low.

The numbers

that kept recurring

wherever you looked,

thirteens

and triple sixes.

How everything came in threes;

anxious for the third,

then reassured

when the set was complete.

In retrospect

it all seems so certain.

So we make stories

and try to make sense.

As if the universe

even notices us,

as if there was purpose

to random events.

I am a rational man

and scorn such magical thinking.

Nevertheless

after a long sickness

and her eventual death

that bird hung around my window,

perching on the sill

and as far as I could tell

intently looking in.

This went on for weeks.

But it was spring,

and off she flew

to court and mate

and procreate

and raise her young,

the natural urge

of all living things

finally taking hold.

I still don't believe

in an afterlife.

And of course she hadn't returned

in the form of a bird

for a final good-bye.

But a good sign, I thought, despite myself.

Because nature has her rhythms,

of youth and maturity

decline and infirmity

which should not be disturbed.

Of birth and death

and returning to the soil.

Because a merciful end

had delivered her from suffering

when enough was enough.

Because life goes on.

And because hers

had been long and good;

no reason to mourn

a life well-lived.