(no subject)

For the record, I'm a terrible sap who cries, heartbroken, over dead birds. This applies whether they are pets of mine that negligent family members have allowed to fly outdoors where there are hawks, tiny unfledged babies fallen from their nests near my apartment (mere minutes before my arrival; if only I'd left work on time, if only it'd held on to its frail life a little longer, if only), or fictional birds in poetry.

Justin, trying to calm my tears over that second incident (it was Saturday, I think, the day of the chickenpillow), pointed out that it was only a bird. Yes, but ... I mean, it's still dead, even if it was only a bird and even if there are umpteen thousand more of them within 100 yards of me. And it was still a cute tiny birdy who would have grown up to have pretty feathers and sing a pretty song and make life better for us all by existing in its quiet, gentle way. Plus it would have eaten spiders, had it survived long enough. Plus its lonely, frail body lying forgotten on the side of the path, all scraggly neck and tiny paperclip wings and huge beak once gaping for food and now mostly closed forever and outsized eyes half-open and dull... it was the picture of tragedy.

Poor baby bird. It didn't even have a feather.