Bird Brained

It was late in the afternoon on a dry fall day
and I was lying low in the crisp grass
beside my friend, Jacob, as we quietly and carefully
stalked our prey like great hunters on
a wild game safari deep in the heart of Africa.
We crawled through the back yard in
camouflage on our hands and knees getting
closer to the naked tree where a flock of chattering
birds perched, dropping their digested dinners
down onto the roof of our new shed
beside where my dog, Oreo, was buried.
We aimed our BB guns at the feathery
nuisances defiling my dog’s grave and pulled
our triggers, letting small copper pellets fly up
into the air and knock the pests from the branches.
Some of them flew off, but most of them were
too busy making noise to even realize the danger,
not even bothering to glance down at us
human children with our air pumped guns.
So we continued to launch the BBs into their midst,
clipping some, missing most and once or twice
watching them fall gracelessly to the ground.
It was those times that I nudged him forward,
urging him to put the pitifully fluttering creatures
out of their misery because I didn’t have
what it took to look into their beady little eyes
and pull the trigger to end their lives.
We kept shooting until we grew tired of knocking
the witless birds to the ground and
we hung up our guns at the end of our
great hunt, each boasting about our hit count.
Above us, birds still squatted in the branches
ignorant of their fallen flock mates lying
feet up among the fallen red leaves.

October 17, 2002