August 3
The other day an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail was nestled in my dahlia plant. He didn’t move and at first I thought he was resting, drinking in the peaceful surroundings. Alas, he was permanently resting. I left him alone, in peace. Though at death it was a picturesque sight, it saddened me to think of his short life. I wondered: How many flowers had he enjoyed in his lifetime? Did he have a family?
A couple weeks earlier, I spotted a dead sparrow in the backyard, lying in a corner against the house. I’m not certain how long he had been dead, although from where I stood, the decaying (or worse—food for other predators) process had not begun. Birds often fly into our clean windows and though most escape dazed but otherwise okay, a few have met their demise with a broken beak and likely head trauma.
When a bird dies, I cry.
I once buried a dead bird in our backyard under our tree, deep enough, I hoped, that he could decay in peace. I cried over him, though I did not know him. The next time I found a dead bird in my potted plant, his beak bloodied and a tiny streak of evidence on my window, I asked my husband to bury him for me. I could not endure another burial, my emotions pushing their way out of me, my tears falling over the recently dug plot I would have carefully chosen for his delicate body. My husband, instead, tossed the bird into a bag and threw it into the trash bin. How different our viewpoints and emotional attachment on a bird’s death.
When I saw the swallowtail, I didn’t cry. I wondered if it was because I couldn’t see his eyes, like I can with a bird. As if the butterfly was simply frozen in time and his beauty a mask over reality. A bird’s death, to me, is more final, more tragic. Perhaps because it is not an insect but an avian, a creature warm and soft. Perhaps because you can see it breathe and when it doesn’t. Their eyes are the real tragedy. They are the life until it is gone.
They simply go dark.
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