Leaving for work, the skies dark and full of promising rain, I took a somber moment to avoid stepping on a dead baby bird in the middle of the sidewalk. The ants were making light work of its frail little broken body. It must’ve fallen from the nest in the middle of the night.
The poor thing was just lying there next to the stairs, you had to walk around it. What struck me the oddest, was that it was the second dead bird I had seen that week.
Sometimes sitting on my porch tending to my plants, a blackbird likes to mess with the little sparrows in the tree outside my son’s window. There’s always plenty of predatory birds; I live near a protected sanctuary. The nest is empty now.
I have seen a bald eagle in the area more than once, and there’s countless osprey. It’s probably the biggest reason there’s not a lot of tomcats in the area. Sure one or two will show up; but they’re never large tomcats, though they are battle worn, and it’s just an observation, but they never stay long. We have to keep our domesticated small cats and dogs leashed for a reason here.
Not three days ago, there was a dead sparrow on the sidewalk between the building I work at and a stripmall shopping center. I walk through the breezeway between the stuffy buildings to take in the lovely fragrant plants and get fresh air and walk.
Strangely enough this bird was just laying there, reduced to tiny bones; the feathers sprawling, it’s eyes hollow, peaceful, the beak turned downward. Poor sightly little thing. It took two days for maintenance to remove it. I was more than mesmerized by the way it looked, something very tranquil in its expression.
I couldn’t help but wonder, is this a sign? What did it mean? Why do I have to make it into anything other than the fact that the circle of life is constant. And death is natural and always all around us. Nature is both full of life and full of death. There has to be balance.
