Always One

Nobody admits to liking magpies.
Brash, noisy trashbirds,
the sneaky ones, the sly ones,
like coyotes to wolves,
sparrow-killers, garden-raiders,
serenity-chasing, raucous early-morning baby-wakers.

Yet.

We have few birds hitting our windows.
It’s been a long time,
but it happens.
I heard the distinctive thud yesterday morning.
I searched and found nothing,
concluded an overenthusiastic sparrow or chickadee had merely glanced off.

I discovered my error that afternoon,
a disheveled tramp huddling silently
in the depths of the apple tree outside my bedroom window.

I can see no gross injury through the leaves,
Just one breast feather stiffly awry; despite
almost constant preening, this remains untouched,
a token perhaps of some deeper injury. Unflying,
it occasionally hops listlessly from branch to branch, but
most of the time,
it just sits, gently probing feathers with iron beak.

But here’s the thing.

It’s never alone.

Sometimes there are half a dozen fellow gutter-falcons surrounding it, silent for once, quiet as no magpie has been since the primal squawk of Creation.

And protective. An imprudent grey squirrel discovered the meaning of the word ‘mob’ this morning. Four shrieking, iridescent Stukas chased it from the tree, bombed it as it frantically fled over the garage, swarmed it as it raced up the telephone pole, harried it along the power line, puffs of fur drifting down with each pounce. Four of them…

Throughout, a fifth sat quietly beside the cripple, uttering uncharacteristic soft chirrups.

It’s never alone.

There’s always at least one other beside it.

Always.

There is of course nothing for it;
I will find it beneath its final tree very soon.
and I will have learned something about the nobility of the scorned
and,
were it not for the scientific disdain my saying so would bring,
about friendship.

This one will be buried with as much witnessing dignity as I can summon and,
I think,
with unashamed tears.