wild birds

wild birds / 

It was upside-down in the water, the brackish

water of the marsh,

beach's edge, it wasn't diving

Or moving,

Anymore, it was still, after staggered

 circling, 

nipping at floating grass and 

bits of sea trash,

bottoms up

Except for the feet, twitching

I was twenty-six that day

I ran to you on the blanket, a haul

across the beach but it seemed 

like I stretched out my arm and I was there,

 stammering sick 

and breathing in gulps,

Can you help me? I don't know what to do, I 

can't touch it,

it's sick, it's sick, it's swimming in circles, it

 might already be dead

It was

The duck

floated where I left it but sideways now

It was not eating anything

You didn't see it shake, you didn't see

its jagged path through the ditch of ocean,

pecking at the reeds like 

it was fending off windmills

I don't remember what was said next

I was as frozen as before, "You're not supposed

to touch wild birds" someone had told me

"They have all kinds of germs"

Seeing nature sick, helpless to help,

I was lost

You used two sticks to lift it

up from the water -- a small grace,

laid it on the sand and we left it,

still and wet and small and dead

But then you turned to me and saw my tears, and said,

"You don't have to care about everything

 you know"

You lost me that day but I held on 

for three more years,

waiting for the boy

who lifted the dead duck out of the water

so gently

with the sticks 

to stay and care

Seeing nature sick leaves us 

lost, disoriented,

things are no longer

 predictable if a duck can suddenly tip

upsidedown and never right itself, if a

person can take back compassion and

leave your feet in the air, dangling

Christie Flemming