There are the inside birds (we live with a flock of four little birdies), and there are the outside birds (my companion puts out seeds and bread every other day for a flock, about sixty or so birds, of sparrows, doves and starlings).
One of our joys is to go out into the backyard of our building to see a little colony of birds flying in, gathering around a large tree, and feasting on the seeds and bread scattered on the ground. It appears to us as if they recognize us, they see us as allies, or at least, not enemies. They hang around on the fences, the roofs and the trees around our backyard. An oasis. I think it is safe to say my companion and I are truly are "bird people."
Yesterday a little sparrow died right before my eyes.
I don't want to make out like this was a grand message or metaphor. I don't read it as an omen or secret sign. It is just something that happened in my life. A life and death moment.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see a bird fall at high speed. It was a sparrow, it fell out of the sky like a rock, or a missile and crashed to the snow-covered ground. I saw it exhale its last breath and watched a trickle of blood pool around its beak. It seems it must have died in mid-air, and came crashing in a heap.
It was shocking. Sad. Almost hard to believe. A precise moment. A little death. I pointed out the dead bird to my companion. We hovered over the dead bird. She asked me to pick it up and move it to a sheltered place in the garden. I did so. The other birds all fluttered around, waiting for us to leave so they could get back to their feast on the ground.
We took a brief moment. A silence. We acknowledged a life, a death, then off we went for our a walk on the lakefront.
