Image by the incomparable Michelle Gardella
A bird flew in the house and no one was alarmed. The doors were left open and the supposed hope was that it would fly back out the way it came in, but both the bird and I knew this was the end.
It would flit from the fiddle leaf fig to the exposed beams of the wall, searching for both refuge and escape. I realize now these are my words and not the bird’s. We were searching for both refuge and escape.
I found the bird on top of a beam, or a cavity found on top of the wall, unintended to meet the ceiling and also unintended to be the resting place of a bird. It was caught, on cobwebs or perhaps old speaker wires, but the bird was not upright and the movements of its chest appeared to be in the perilous pause between trying to find breath and trying to let go, of breath or of life or of the past or of the will to live.
I carried it in a small towel to the porch outside, through the open doors it flew in. Birds are light, nearly weightless. When was the last time you held a bird? A bird is not meant to be held.
I set it in a shadowy spot on the wooden planks and came inside. Fresh air is always good for the soul, I thought. I realize now these are my thoughts and not the bird’s.
From the corner of my eye I saw the bird move and I ran back toward it with the sense of awe and wonder instilled with the sense of regained life. But there was little life left. The bird moved because the wind blew it from where I placed it.
Because a bird is light, nearly weightless.
A bird is not meant to be held.