Chickadee
Animal Rights Poetry By Lynne Goldsmith
An Animal Rights Poem from All-Creatures.org

I scooped her up
thinking she was dead,
or would die soon in my hand,
having flown out at me
to meet her impact other side of me
unexpected hardness before a fall.
The flutters, spasms,
talons curled under
twisted her toward a death
where breath was labored,
her softness pulsing the aches
of terror to the unfamiliar,
I could only imagine.
I wanted to somehow calm
whatever was passing
as her thin eye film closed
to her struggle lessening
from where, it seemed,
she refused departure,
or else could not yet move.
I tried setting her down,
but she stayed to settle
in the cup of my hand
for minutes I remained...
until she looked about
as if to sense or touch
familiars.
I waited, made sounds
that I hoped would comfort.
Then blinks came,
the unfolding of claws,
the shaking out of wings,
her captured state a release
of coming into herself
in a way most different...
She looked at me then
alert, with starts and turns,
to right herself again
toward Earth and sky;
and for herself
with uplifted heart—
set off to fly.

Originally published on Alaska Audubon, 2020

Image from PXFuel.com