In the Hand

Every once in a while, when I am busy in the house I will be startled by a resonant thud. It is the sound of a bird slamming into a pane of glass. All types of birds have done it: Robins, Juncos, Siskins, Goldfinches, Flickers, Sparrows. Is it always a simple mistake, due to the fact that they can't comprehend clear invisible barriers? Maybe they slam into the glass on a dare, hoping to be the first to fly through our house and investigate our nest. Sometimes I'm pretty sure it's a search for a short cut, an escape route from the gun-metal blue flash of the Kestrel that sometimes dive-bombs the Three-Leaf Sumac in the front yard, causing the Juncos to explode in all directions. And sometimes male birds will aggressively slam into a window mistaking their reflection for another male moving in on their territory.

This Junco hit the window so hard that he was laying akimbo on the porch, beak down with wings splayed, not moving. Since it was cold, and the cats were outside, I picked him up to see if he was still alive. Often, they will hit so hard they break their neck, and when I pick them up, their tiny heads loll softly side to side, with maybe a crimson drop of blood on their beak. But this one was still alive. He could hold his head up, but his eyes were closed. He had literally knocked himself silly. I held him for a few minutes until he started to come around. I held him because who wouldn't want to hold, even just briefly, such tiny, soft agile wildness? Eventually he could stand on his own, just barely; so I placed him on the firewood pile. Each time I checked on him his eyes became more and more alert as his fog cleared, until they were nervous and darting. After thirty minutes he flew awkwardly away.

In the old chicken coop, amidst the clutter of my work table, I have a plastic bag that holds three pairs of wings. Wings from birds that didn't survive their collision. At the time I thought I might use them in some art project, but that has never happened. So, they sit there, covered in the salt and borax that I used to tan them, some still nailed to a board, spread out as if in a full gliding flight.