A Grandfather storm tore through our neck of the woods yesterday, making a glorious mess of the yard and the farm in general. I was gone and so missed it, but I could imagine what it had been like when I saw the yard. Grandfather had taken it into his mind to do some pruning, and limbs were twisted right out of the trees all around the house. The Surprise Lilies—each one a pink crown of blossoms arranged on long, graceful stems—were mashed flat. So one of my first orders of business was to collect the broken stems and bring them in.
As I was carefully sorting through the prostrate flowers, a small movement below the pile caught my eye. When I pushed them aside, a small bird stared back at me, breathing heavily. In a second, all my immediate plans changed and I was heading toward the house for a towel.
Quite soon, Peeps (I had to call him something) was installed in a warm box inside the house, and making all sorts of little sounds. He hadn’t enjoyed being picked up so much, and when I gently held him up in inspect him, he made a few more comments of displeasure. As his feathers dried, he started flopping around in his box as though he had a pretty good idea of what it was like to fly. But as his flopping became more animated, I feared he was going to wear himself out. So off I went to dig for worms.
The first sign that all might not be well was when he wouldn’t take the worm. The worm, I am sure, didn’t mind, but I did. I put Peeps back in his box and his flopping became worse. I had checked his wings and his legs both, and all was well, but the more he flopped, the more it seemed that something was very wrong. No matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to get upright, and all his efforts only landed him onto his back where he kicked his tiny feet hopelessly in the air and snagged his feathers on his toes. The only thing that calmed him down was when I offered him my finger to curl his claws around. His center of gravity seemed to be gone and any measure of stability offered comfort.
I had hoped that his fall from the tree hadn’t been too bad, but he must have had a rough landing. An hour after his rescue, his small body with its blue wing feathers lay in the box, still and quiet. Perhaps I hadn’t been able to save him, but at least he had died warm and dry. I gave him a burial of the wild by offering his tiny body to the cats, who quickly and gratefully reduced him to a pile of blue feathers.
We have countless encounters with life of one kind or another every day, and sometimes it might be easier to pass it by. But I wonder how many people I meet each day who have recently fallen from the tree as it were, and haven’t much time left. Can I not offer a place warm and dry?