Chickadee Funeral

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The cottonwoods told me that summer would end soon. I was already nostalgic for it, and for other summers that had passed. Dark clouds gathered over the treeline, warmed by the wind, touched by the grassy smell of late-August, as I made my way up the path, and greeted the false-solomon’s-seal, the ocean spray, the wood sorrel. I followed the stream, up the hill, deeper into the forest, and then I turned around at the usual spot to head home.

But, on the way back, I stopped suddenly, stunned. There was a dead bird on the trail. Had I missed it on the way up? Had it just died, perhaps moments ago? I crouched down and nudged the bird with a stick. It slumped over, both limp and stiff, heavy and empty. I wanted to cry. There were no marks. No blood. Just a black-and-white songbird, emptied of the-thing-that-makes-us-alive.

I decided to have a funeral. I made a circle around it, arranging fir-cones to the north and south,  nipplewort leaves to the east and west, and plantain leaves at each corner. Around this, I placed a circle of dried maple leaves, rimmed by ferns. And then, in the bird’s stiff talons, I placed a tiny, pink geranium. This was the part that scared me–the way the bird’s feet were curled like branches. At first I pulled my hand back, too scared to come that close to touching the bird. But I tried again, and the flower stayed there, as though in a vase.

Miraculously, no one walked by during this time, despite the trail being busy. And, just as the funeral was complete, the sun surfaced for one brief moment. It shined right on the bird, and then the wind blew in, and the clouds stole it away.