Birds, birds, birds…….my first developed gravesite as a
young girl was for found dead birds…..I would bury them at the edge of a dirt
drift that had been formed from the past winters by a snow plow why did they
die…..so many of them. I always felt like I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to
be doing or they wouldn’t be dying……so,
I would thank the lifeless bodies for singing to me; and I would bury them all
together in the same dirt drift that had been banked the winter before……
Two months ago I began to find dead birds in my back patio.
I began to bury them giving them the same reverence and prayerful descent as I
did in my days as a youth. For there is a bird feeder on the patio that we keep filled; it is an
island for all the birds in the neighborhood, and those that are just making
their journey to somewhere else……One night in the dark I noticed something
shadowing on the outer patio; not moving but I felt it’s presence enough to go
in the direction that was shadowed…….it was a small bird just sitting on the
patio squares with its head down as though it were asking for forgiveness…….my
heart sprung a pain so deep that I weep even now as I share this…….it did not
try to get away, nor did it move. I gently picked it up and placed it in a box
where it could not be tormented any longer wishing I had the strength to take
it out of its misery…..
I now find myself nurturing this lovely animal that
originally had amber eyes pictured here, yes, I swear they were amber, thus I
named her. So sweet and talkative; reaching gently with her paws, grasping my face……she
would lick, lick, lick my face as a mother does when she finds her lost child…….Afterward,
I came to the realization that she was the huntress……..she was the creature
unable to kill her prey; leaving them to suffer….and now I was nurturing her………..Amberina
is what we call her now….I can’t discard her either…….and her eyes are green……
