Hello. This post is about Death & Birds.
A few days ago I was rushing out of my little office, irritated by some terrible injustice (or, more likely, inconvenience) when I noticed a Bee on ground below. He looked exhausted, so I fetched some sugar water and a paintbrush and knelt on the grass, hunched over with my face a couple of inches from the earth, offering him a drink. Suddenly, I felt a nearby presence. A short, soft rustling sound edged closer, and then a young Robin appeared in my periphery. “Hello” I said, politely, not moving from my Bee-tending position. While clearly each their own sovereign beings, I do find myself eyeing wild Birds as tiny emissaries, representatives of life, seemingly on a mission to pull awareness back towards a state of presence and wonder. The Robin flicked some leaves with his head, and then hopped closer. And closer. And then, closer still. He must have been a Robin from the rescue centre who’d been released in the garden earlier in the year because, in his seeming fascination with what was unfolding, he came to stand as close to the Bee as I was; body perfectly still, head moving in punctuated angles. So close, the little Robin came, that I felt compelled to utter, “Please don’t eat him”. A request he honoured as the three of us, in our motley little triangle, each did our own thing; together. Our interspecies gathering ended as the Bee, satiated, took to the air, the Robin darted to the Rose bush, and I returned to my desk. Clueless as to what had irritated me, prior.