I touched a bird this week. On Tuesday night, it was; I held gently to my breast a pigeon dying. We were on our way to get ice cream, a nice summery thing to do, and delightful to do in Missoula where the Big Dipper serves up generous cones of huckleberry ice cream or lemon-ginger sorbet. We were a block away, and a sudden fluttering caught Poe’s attention, and she dashed in her loping yellow-lab way to leap upon the flutterer: a pigeon dying.
He was frantic and lopsided. As soon as Poe let him go he flapped crazily upward, only to loop sideways and crash into a lilac hedge, wings still beating wildly. He staggered in uncertain circles around the lawn, a pitiable pigeon who looked as though he’d had a few too many. Jeff moved toward him slowly and wrapped him gently in his shirt, smoothing down ruffled wings and holding him steady. The shirt vibrated wildly with the pigeon’s terrified shuddering, which lessened only slightly as we ordered our ice cream and sat to eat it (and to look up numbers of animal hospitals).
No bird experts being immediately available, we headed home, and Jeff passed the poor quivering creature to me. I could feel the erratic thump of the pigeon’s heart, but the shaking had subsided, and he rested almost quietly in my grasp as I held him to the warmth of my body. I felt his fear, and wondered what had scared him so completely; or was it only his animal sense of imminent death, his instinctive resistance to annihilation?
As we walked through the September twilight beneath wide-spreading maples, his frantic struggle began again, and I tried to calm him with soft words and pigeon coos. And he became still. Too still? Yet I could feel a heartbeat—or was it only my own blood pumping into my fingertips? He remained still, still, and the weight in my hands changed, almost imperceptibly, as a pigeon spirit soared upwards toward the slender crescent moon.
An irrational fear twitched through my heart and down my arms, a deep, dark terror that broke through all the fragile securities with which I surround myself; for an infinitesimal moment I knew, in each cell and sinew, that I too would die, that this pigeon’s death was just a foreshadowing of my own future.
And then I felt his weight in my hands again, felt my heart thumping out an affirmation of life, felt the caress of the breath in my lungs, and knew, in each cell and sinew, that I was alive. The pigeon would be returned to the earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and I would continue on the side of life. I breathed deeply of the rich evening air.
He was frantic and lopsided. As soon as Poe let him go he flapped crazily upward, only to loop sideways and crash into a lilac hedge, wings still beating wildly. He staggered in uncertain circles around the lawn, a pitiable pigeon who looked as though he’d had a few too many. Jeff moved toward him slowly and wrapped him gently in his shirt, smoothing down ruffled wings and holding him steady. The shirt vibrated wildly with the pigeon’s terrified shuddering, which lessened only slightly as we ordered our ice cream and sat to eat it (and to look up numbers of animal hospitals).
No bird experts being immediately available, we headed home, and Jeff passed the poor quivering creature to me. I could feel the erratic thump of the pigeon’s heart, but the shaking had subsided, and he rested almost quietly in my grasp as I held him to the warmth of my body. I felt his fear, and wondered what had scared him so completely; or was it only his animal sense of imminent death, his instinctive resistance to annihilation?
As we walked through the September twilight beneath wide-spreading maples, his frantic struggle began again, and I tried to calm him with soft words and pigeon coos. And he became still. Too still? Yet I could feel a heartbeat—or was it only my own blood pumping into my fingertips? He remained still, still, and the weight in my hands changed, almost imperceptibly, as a pigeon spirit soared upwards toward the slender crescent moon.
An irrational fear twitched through my heart and down my arms, a deep, dark terror that broke through all the fragile securities with which I surround myself; for an infinitesimal moment I knew, in each cell and sinew, that I too would die, that this pigeon’s death was just a foreshadowing of my own future.
And then I felt his weight in my hands again, felt my heart thumping out an affirmation of life, felt the caress of the breath in my lungs, and knew, in each cell and sinew, that I was alive. The pigeon would be returned to the earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and I would continue on the side of life. I breathed deeply of the rich evening air.
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