A pile of fluttering down, and a few flight feathers, were left to drown slowly in the puddles left by the last rain. Not enough of them for me to even identify what kind of a bird it had been - but the flight feathers are grey, and longer than those that might have graced a junco or a chickadee so it was not a really small bird.
I didn't see it die. Not really. But I have seen its death, iconic and raw, played out against the backgrop of drenched and dripping cedars and a pale, washed-out winter sky.
My heart is still beating against my ribs as though it too was a bird, and anxious to flee the claws and hooked beak of the Angel of Death...
