i was riding along on my bike and i noticed something green in the road.. i thought it was a bird, but it was too small to be a bird.. so i had to have a closer look..
yep. it was a little green bird.
never seen a bird like that..he looked like he was missing from some fairytale
he kept fluffing every now and then..
there was a little breeze. He fuzzed his feathers like he was trying to stay warm. Something was wrong with one of his legs.
I think it was the left leg, he couldn't move it. I wasn't exactly sure how he got there..
So i took him off the road, across the sidewalk, over to the front lawn of some big white house w/a porch..and i laid him down on the grass..
It was a little spikey.. i didn't have anything soft to put him on.. i thought about ringing the door and asking for a box w/some cotton in it like they should have such a box laying around.. or a kleenex box or something warm/soft, but i wasn't sure what the person would think of me laying down on their lawn looking at a green bird like the holy grail.. He didn't look terrible..but a small active bird like that being very still and the only noticeable movement being the slight puffing of his body while breathing just looked terribly beautiful.. and terribly painful.. and these terrible things are wonderful and terrible for me to witness.. like the birth of life and the eventual failure of the body
I looked around and the only thing i could come up with was to gather some small leaves off of the sidewalk in bunches and sprinkle them like a bed.. and keep the wind from making him too cold..
he looked tucked in and ready for a Walden Pond poem.. his body pulsed lightly up and down w/his breathing..
i lay there taking pictures of him..and watching him.. i thought i should leave, not much i could do.. but i didn't want to leave.. i was hoping he would snap out of it, feel better in the morning, and fly off..
so i laid there and watched him..
Then all of a sudden his beak opened..
and it reminded me of my mom in the hospital.. she gasped for breath..
but i wasn't sure if he was trying to speak or swallow or what.. i had a suspicion though of it being the same type of gasping that happens when death touches the lungs.. it squeezes the chest and causes gasping for whatever air can be found..
and so he gasped there .. a few silent open and closing mouth gestures..
and then he stopped.
and his body didn't pulse with breathing anymore...
so i put some leaves over his head.
..and thought about him.
..and left.
i don't know what bothered me more... the bird dying or me taking pictures of him dying...
