Bird in Hand - June 23 2025

 

Bird in Hand

June 23 2025

I could feel its heartbeat in my hand.

The tapered wings were neatly folded,

the body oddly still

but not yet cold.

It must have all been airy bones

and precisely sculpted feathers,

held together

by cotton-batten flesh;

as if, dropped

it wouldn’t plummet like a rock

but waft gently down

like dandelion fluff.

Who knows

why I picked it up

beneath the window

it must have hit.

The bird wasn't dead, at least not yet,

and I continued to cradle it

cupped in both my hands.

I had no choice.

The act of intervention

had made me instrumental

in the life of this bird;

relinquishing it

would have made me complicit

in its untimely death.

But eventually

the stunned bird perked up

and exploded from my hands,

a blur of frenzied wings

slapping the air.

I can’t remember how long I stood

bird in hand,

a bystander

who stops to watch

a life and death struggle.

But will never forget that tiny heart

beating impossibly fast,

the delicate body

that seemed mostly air,

and the fierce life force

that pulled it back

from the shadow of death

that briefly passed over it.