“Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.”
—-Rabindranath Tagor
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Winter will not give up.
22 degrees this morning with five inches of new snow. Wind as ferocious as any mountain-cold winter wind pelts snow heavy trees and pulls the temperature down. If I closed my eyes I would swear it was early March instead of the first week of May.
The power has gone out twice in two the last two days. Greg and I watch downloaded videos in bed by candlelight, and listen to the wind stir deck chairs and shake trees.
On Monday, gusts registered between 60 and 100mph. Wind drives snow horizontally, the air is sheeted, impenetrable: a whiteout.
I am sitting in bed, working, when I hear the loud thwack against the north-facing window near the apex of the roof. The impact sounds fatal. I hesitate, imagining a dead bird on the ground outside.
Still I slip on Greg’s Boggs and step out into the gale out. A downy woodpecker, a male, lies on its side, fallen two stories from the window onto the back of Greg’s handmade skiff. He rests, stunned but alive, between two slats of scrap wood.
The wind is relentless. Trees twirl carving out crazy patterns overhead and snow sprays like buckshot.
I retrieve a thick dishtowel, and, as I have done many times with other birds, gently wrap the black and white speckled body, careful to leave an opening for air and carry it to the deck high above our yard, where I place the woodpecker in the relative safety—from weather, from predators—just outside the deck door against a wall.
It is always surprising to hold a bird. This piece of sky held steady for a just a moment.
It’s late afternoon and the sky darkens early with the wind and weather. I leave my work to begin dinner and pick up the cluttered house, sending the bird a little reiki, each time I pass.
An hour goes by. And then another.
When I check on the bird, he is sleeping, head curled and tucked against his shoulder.
I wonder if the trauma is too much and if he is slowly ebbing away on the deck. The thought is heavy in my chest. The day, with its horrible, unseasonable weather, suddenly feels like a shipwreck.
Then the power goes out.
My worry increases with the deteriorating conditions on the mountain. A thousand “what ifs” rifle my brain. Perhaps we should take the bird inside, says Greg.
I go out to rearrange the bird, to make sure he has an opening for escape. The towel appears empty but I when I tilt up the edge I see the bird’s head is up now. Gently, I pick him up, feeling the surprising thickness of his bill, the sharpness of his claws as they wrap around my fingers.
It is always surprising to hold a bird. This piece of sky held steady for a just a moment.
I remember once that I rescued a hummingbird who flew into my car on a day when I had the door swung wide to clean it out. I managed to gently trap the bird with a cloth only to feel its tiny talons grasp my finger. When I removed the blind, the hummingbird stayed—for the longest time—looking at me from the perch of my hand.
But I am clumsy as I try to rearrange the woodpecker and suddenly he is free, half-fluttering, half-hopping across the deck. I worry now he has broken a wing and I try to recapture him, but he evades me, hopping up into the wood bin, with its perpendicular stacks of wood racked against the house.
At least he is out of the wind.
As evening descends, Greg and I watch the bird. He is puffed, ball-like, and wedged against the house behind the spine of the wood bin.
I think surely he will die.
But as the day darkens, the bird slowly inches up the wall, as if the setting sun is the fulcrum of his return.
“Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.”
—-Rabindranath Tagor
And then he is gone.
I shine a headlamp into the wood box, afraid I will see his body, exhausted and given up, lying at the bottom. But there is no sign of the bird.
I cannot say for sure that he lived, but I think of him feeling the light even as the day dimmed and the wind bellowed across the mountain. Perhaps his hollow was nearby and perhaps he was able to make it safely home.
Thank you for reading.
Big love,
Karen
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Upcoming Events
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The Burning Heart: Finding Energy in your Short Fiction
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Rollinsville, CO
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