“Why did the bird die”,
Don Grier
asked my young daughter,,
the small bird with the fading yellow breast,
near our outside table.
Strange –
I never saw a dead bird in nature
without my cat lurking around
with a smirk on its face.
Why is that?
with the billions of birds that die
every day.
Where do they go?
Do they dissolve into the earth?
Or are the lifted up on the breath
of God.
I digress. So I answerd my daughter.
The birdie was flying home to its family
when it got caught in a storm and flew
into a tree and died.
She looked sadly at me,
much as for my weak answer as he lost bird.
“But why was Goldie,
away from her parents with a storm pressing
and the skies turing grey?”
Boy was I in trouble, now!
She had named the bird.
I should have know better,
with a precocious five-year,
and me not even knowing
where bird bones go.
So, I said that
Goldie was late from her
appointed time home after flitting
around with her friend Rocket Robin.
BIG MISTAKE!
Now she said, “Why did Mr. and Mrs. Chirpy let
Goldie fly to see Rocket when a storm
was coming?”
The parents were now involved.
I did not know what to do
with my wayward story as much as
I did not know where all birds
go when they die.
So I finally got smart,
Or seemingly so, and asked Kate
“What do you think was the reason,
poor Goldie died?”
She answered rightly and without hesitation.
“I don’t know everything!”