FireEngineRed Toolbox
            by Rachel Palmer
                c. 2008
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At an August picnic with family,
Parents, grandparents, cousins from Omaha,
A peculiarity emerged
On an outdoor table
Under a tree
Among the intimate crowd
Of People.

Young Robin, eating food from the hand, would perch on our hands . . . .

His decision to be social
                will haunt me
                        forever.
                                                            _I_am_a_murderer._



Do people rescue wildlife
To assimilate a species,
Introducing the fine mercy
Of human nature?

There was no fear in his demeanor, only hunger . . . .

I do not know
                what moral code
                        I follow.
                                                            _I_am_disgusting._



I knew he would not
Survive the winter,
Never a migration,
Or aviary model
For natural life.

Children I do not know threw rocks at him, and, that cat . . . .
                                                            _I_am_weak_and_stupid._

I am a murderer.
In the backyard,
My dog has a baby robin in his mouth.

The babyÕs wing
Is out of place,
Laying elongated and below the belly.

Eyes not open,
Enormous mouth agape,
I search the yard for the nest and parents.

They are thinking,
Watching us from the phone wire above,
Making fast decisions which require sacrifice.

And they know
Flying noisily to a tree within my field of vision
That they do not live where perched at the moment.

And I realize
Their intelligence and capacity
For love of a family beyond my new, weak companion.

No flight feathers,
A useless wing,
A painful hunger,
A piercing voice.
A broken leg?!
                Yes.

A box with grass,
A shovel to the garden,
And earth worms.
His desperate mouth
Knows the texture of this meat,
On his beak.

Just tap the box and he opens
And with each worm gains more life . . . .
I am relieving his exhaustion
With the only element he needs in this immediacy.

My thoughts are perverted by confusion.  
And the irony of his intense energy
Versus a crippled body
Is more than I can handle gently.

One last worm,
And I will always wonder
How I reasoned
That a quick death was my duty
With a thirty-pound FireEngineRed toolbox
And a black plastic bag to hold the body.


I am not nature.  
My dog is nature.  
My moral judgment 
Is cloudy at best 
And regret is not a word
Powerful enough to hide
My embarrassment.

I am mourning and haunted. 

                                                            _You_are,_too._


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