A Bird with a Broken Wing Can Never Fly.

Sara Wright
 
A little girl
scooped him up…
Oh, a broken wing.
She was old enough
to know chickadees
 who couldn’t fly
ended up dead.
NO, screamed the child.
 
By the time
the adult took over
the deed was done.
I prepared a room
for him in the house…
placed balsam boughs
inside the cage.
We were going to save him.

---

 At first we imagined
a healing, though
no one we spoke to concurred.
A week spent watching
a captive wild bird
frantically clinging to mesh,
cheeping piteously
as he tried to escape
changed both our minds.
 
The adult must kill him.
Mercy?
 
Then a boy we love
intervened.
“It’s not up to you
to end his life,
you didn’t break
his wing.”
 
A curious perspective.
 
One that dove –tailed with
  an idea of mine....
 Imagining
I might release him
to a safe outdoor space –
Oh, I didn’t expect him
to live very long,
but at least he
would have a few hours,
maybe days, before
dying among his kin?
 
 Acting on the boy’s remark
 we three dragged up
  the storm toppled
 balsam spire,
 tucked the tree
into a protected corner
of the house…
 
I hung feeder and fat,
placed water on a nearby log.
By then it was dark…
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
My body shrunk.
I didn’t even know
 if I could do it.
 
Daggling from a fish- hook
of my own making
earlier that day,
I owned that my decision,
though swayed by the child’s
deep compassion,
was more about the adult
than the bird.
 
Call it a savior complex.
I got caught by my own need.
 
Who was I
to interfere?
Nature routinely sacrificed
 one
for the many.
‘Individualism’
has little meaning
when survival
requires keeping
one’s focus
on the Whole -
A hard lesson.
Excruciatingly painful
to learn.
Over and Over.
 
Leopold was right.
“Naturalists live
in a world of wounds
that only they can see.”
Or feel.
 
 Deep Space
held no comfort.
The stars were absent.
No way was right.
Anticipatory grief
is an illusion.
I was steeped in suspension
Enduring the night.
 
When Lily* cooed
at dawn,
it was time.
I carried the cage
out to the tree.
Unzipped the flap.
My little bird was free.
 
Chick a dee dee dee.
 piercing full bellied
cries brought excited
calls from his kin.
Many inhabited
this particular neighborhood.
He was home at last –
with friends
If only to say goodbye.
A bird with a broken wing
can never fly.
 
*Lily b is free flying housed dove who has spent countless time in the wild and always returned… he routinely reads my mind.