Lost Bird
Brandon Cook
I.
I had a bird in Mexico
I don’t remember how—if he fell from the nest or sky or why I rescued him—
But he couldn’t fly,
And so I put him in a shoebox, to nurse him back to health
And naively fed him rice, thinking he’d be fine
And then I waited
When he died, his frail body, so light and fine, like fire
Stretched in an arch, as if longing to go on, as if in cry, mid-flight
His beak just open, as if searching for the sky
And there was nothing but to feed him to the earth in the small cardboard box
In the sadness of corruption which seemed, as ever, senseless
After which I looked up into the great sorrow of the desert
Awash in the pain of too much sun and too much seeing
II.
The pain of others is always an abstraction, so we observe it, but with distraction
Safely keeping our sanity, like a mind wiping sweat and dirt away
Our pain, of course, is the most palpable reality, concrete and mute of comfort
Devoid of succoring words
I confess
The pain of that little loss bereft me
Though it seems absurd, I lost some part of me with that little bird
And
If a fallen bird is worth such mourning,
How do hearts like ours go on?
In a world of constant yearning
Where you must hold, with both hands, your hope
Knowing the same hands must let go, of everything and all
How do hearts like ours go on?