Take Flight

On the way to work, a cardinal dived onto the street in front of my car, corrected, and swooped off into the peripheral. My foot tensed to brake, which is more than it does for errant squirrels, and I wondered if the sudden two seconds of lost acceleration saved me from a collision somewhere on my way to work.
The day before, a brown, nondescript bird flew against one of the windows of the building I work in. It came down as easily as Icarus but was not afforded the dignity of hiding its death throes in the inky water. I can hear the sound of it as it fell, but surely I could not have heard the impact of this small package of feather and hollow bone. I can't even take a phone call on that side of the building because of the noise.
I stood above the bird, its body made heaving motions of life as it looked up at me, beak opening and closing in some mantra of fear and misunderstanding. There was nothing I could do for the bird, even though I wanted to pick it up.
And as it lay there dying it did not understand my lack of compassion, did not understand that I could not afford to let anyone see me picking up a dead animal, even though it was not yet dead.

I have yet to learn what these birds are trying to tell me.