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The Weekend of the Bird ApocalypseWords by Daniela Buccilli QuailBellMagazine.com  Friday, my husband chases the leapfrog flights of baby birds. He lays each one back in the twig dish of a nest. He scoops up one runt from under a forsythia branch when the first saved thing breaks out to crash on the driveway rocks. He could be at this saving all day and no one would live. The adult robins squawk eye to eye with this man
grasping at their babies-- He leaves them to their suicides or genocide by crow. Not even the parents stay to watch. Saturday morning an adult tangled in the garden netting bleeds at its ankles. He calls for scissors to unravel the tortured bird’s legs. I watch him toss it into the air with hopes of ascension. It flutters a flight that helps it reach shade. Sunday, with bird in hand, he runs from the compost heap, calling for Neosporin. The white gel dabbed on a wound is not enough to keep a torn lung from flapping open. I see clearly how the air that runs through my body may come out from a wound in my back. The bird body breath moves the hairs on his wrist. He holds the animal to squeeze it dead and sets it down. He sits in silent horror, a kind of practice. Monday, his father will die in a hospital bed, no matter what, and birds re-build stick bowls for new turquoise eggs. But in the middle of the panic how could he have believed there would be an end. CommentsComments are closed.
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