Hello. This post is about Death & Birds, and every word of it is dedicated to the fiercely loving memory of the poet
.When I was little, whenever I saw an animal which had been killed on the countryside lanes, I used to insist that we stop and take it home for a proper burial. My aunt told me recently that she used to try to distract me by pointing at something skyward—but I was beady-eyed and on a mission. I felt a great sense of injustice that our rituals around Death were not extended to our wild non-human kin, and while I was vocal about that aspect of the motivation, there was another, more complicated layer to it. My mother had died when I was three years old, and so being around Death gave me a sense of connection to her. It was as though she existed in another world, and these pockets of reverence allowed me to place my hands against the edge of it. At times I thought I could sense her, doing the same. Both of us with our palms pressed against the wall separating our worlds.