Page 136 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue2

blood, so Zoe had bitten him. His wing was mangled. I knew that the bacteria from a cat bite could kill

a bird slowly and painfully in a matter of days. The parents watched anxiously, and I finally decided to

leave him to their care. Beneath the shelter of the pine boughs, I placed him on the ground with food

and water. That night, the three huddled together, but the next morning the parents flew away and

this time, they didn’t return. I couldn’t bear it and brought the little bird into the house.

I set the badly broken wing knowing in my heart that “little red” would never again take flight. He lived

for two more days, gazing at me with increasingly dull, listless eyes. When he took his final breath, I

wept. I buried him under my favorite crabapple, and once again the world went black. The parents still

came to feed at dusk, but I had unintentionally broken a sacred trust between us. This place was no

longer a safe haven for them. A week later, the cardinals vanished.

Soon after, I flew to the mountains of Mexico to stay with colleagues. One day we went to the outdoor

market and there to my horror were three young cardinals stuffed into a six-­‐inch square cage. I burst

into uncontrollable weeping, shocking my two friends. I had to set those cardinals free. My spending

money would only cover the release of one cardinal, and I was forced to make an impossible choice.

Handing over all of my money, I bought a young male who was given to me stuffed in a small paper

bag. His wings beat frantically. My friends obliged me by driving around until I found a place near water

with good leafy green cover. Tears rolling down my face, I got out of the car, gently held the bird’s

wings clasped to his body, and then I set him free. He disappeared instantly into the emerald green

landscape. I stood frozen in time. Suddenly out of the copse of trees and tangled vines, I heard the

clearest cardinal whistle. He sang to me twice.

When I returned from my trip, a new pair of cardinals was nesting in the pines outside my bedroom

window. With deep gratitude, I listened to their magnificent love songs each dawn. They raised a single

female chick who seemed especially attached to her parents. Every night under the pines, they took

turns feeding her sunflower seed, even long after she was as big as they were.

This was the last summer cardinals would nest or raise their young in my patch of woods and stream.

The youngster moved away in the fall, but the adults still visited their feeding station under the pines

each evening. Then one night in November, the male appeared alone.