Friday, November 10, 2006

Screech Owl

Yesterday afternoon when I stopped at the mailbox on my way to pick up the girls, a dead bird about the same body size of a dove was lying beside the driveway. I walked past it on the way back to the car, and suddenly a small detail registered: feathered toes. I retraced my steps, stooped to lift the ruffled body in my hands and found I was holding a small, grey screech owl, not long dead, still soft and pliable, one wing broken and hanging at an odd angle, one eye missing, but with no blood or guts marring its perfection. Its feathers were as soft as mist, softer than The Great Golden Sun Cat's white belly, so soft my fingertips could barely feel them at all. "Oh, baby," I heard myself breath involuntarily, "I'm so sorry." I laid him in the shade behind the mailbox, and on the way home stopped to pick him up, laying him on some papers on The Younger Daughter's lap in the backseat.

When we got to the house, the girls and I held him and gently admired him, straightening his broken wing and tucking it back against his body. We stroked his white and grey breast and with our index fingers traced his legs and feet, the feathers as fine as fur upon his curled toes. Carefully I lifted his "ear" tufts to show the girls what he would have looked like with them aloft, then smoothed them down again. At last, spade in hand, we took his small body to the northern creek where the screech owls call on summer evenings. The Older Daughter guarded him from Tongue Depressor Kitty while I dug a hole. We lined it with long autumn grasses, laid him in the nest and covered him over with more grasses and finally soft, rich dirt. The Younger Daughter said a prayer. We scattered dead leaves over the newly disturbed earth and left buckbrush, its arcing branches full of bright berries and paling leaves, on the grave.

4 comments:

Michael A. Wells said...

Cindy-
Reading this struck me as such a contrast to the hassled and multifarious world I am accustomed to. That you and your girls would stop and examine the beauty of nature, even in the midst of death, marveling at this creation and then providing a peaceful interment is touching. I am quite stirred by your narrative and example. Certainly my family is accustomed to grieving and laying one of our pets to rest but that is in the same context as a family member and quite different.

It has been a long time since I have done anything akin to your story and then it was in private.

Paul said...

You gave me a sense of peace and beauty.

Anonymous said...

Touching, tender, respectful event that was so beautifully written.

Lucindyl said...

Michael--It just seemed like the respectful thing to do, and I also wanted to impress upon the girls how amazing he was and to encourage their curiousity and appreciation of the world around them.

Paul--Your blog entries very often do the same for me. I'm happy to reciprocate.

Susan--It was a time of marveling. Sad, yes, but something in me wanted to dance, too, just knowing that something as intricate and beautiful as that little screech owl had existed. Part of me is still dancing to think about it.