Ordinary Beauty as seen by Leila Anasazi

This little bird has been lingering about my back deck all day. She ate bread crumbs from my hand and hops haltingly here and there. She curls up in curve of the cowboy boot that is airing out in the sun and her eyes become smaller and smaller but I don’t believe she sleeps.

She hops down to the ground beneath the cherry tree and joins the other little brown birds in their pecking at the ground. But when they fly away, she hops back up onto the deck.

Of course, something is awry. Her back end looks mangled, and it was only a few moments before she appeared on the deck that I saw a Coopers Hawk sitting quietly near the bird feeder. There’s also a new smear on the dining room window–the tell-tale dust of a small bird splat left after someone has flown into the glass.

There’s nothing I can do to help this small bird. All my efforts toward assisting–of course–freak her and she wastes whatever energy she has to hop or fly away.

Just yesterday I heard one of those bird splats, the distinctive thuNK that reverberates in the house. A moment or two later I peeked out the window and saw a raccoon making a meal from the kamikaze bird. The Discovery Channel live in my backyard.

So, I am feeling protective of today’s little brown bird. And I am wanting to make it all better.

Each of my efforts to protect the bird go awry. And finally I admit that this little bird might just want to curl up and die. And there’s not a damn thing that I can, or ought to, do about it.