| Of Cats and Wrens |
[Jun. 12th, 2009|08:12 pm] |
My cats have been taking advantage of me while I sleep. They meow at all hours of the night--to go in, to go out--and in my sleep I hear them and wake just enough to do as they bid. And when morning comes I'm grumbling, because they do this all night, and my sleep is marred by the turbulence of meows.
But last night! Ah-ha! Last night! Last night I was not so deep in the sleep because I had a cup of coffee late in the day. They started their hypnotizing meows in the thick of the night, but I said, "no, nono, no." I took my glass of water and opened the door and SPLASH! Ha! I got to do it twice, with great relish. And not another meow for the night--they must've let the third cat know what was going on.
I'm putting extra water by my bed tonight. Ha!
And then, the story of the wrens. There's a pair that have set up shop in one of the corners of my house. I'd been guarding their little nest--whenever I heard them kicking up a ruckus I'd go outside. Usually there was a cat to collect, and I'd swoop her up and put her inside. Yesterday we started hearing little cheeps--the eggs had hatched! The wrens were flying back and forth, back and forth, and I was extra vigilant, as were the cats--from the window.
This morning it was much the same, and I had the cats inside early, so the wrens could go about their business of baby-feedings. Mid-morning there was a lot of squawking. I looked out the window and saw nothing, and so continued with my conversation with J. But I noticed that they weren't flying back and forth anymore, and also that I didn't hear them chirping or squawking or anything. It seemed like they were gone, and I began to wonder what might be going on.
Then Renee and I went for a nice long hike, up through the woods to the top of the ridge, through laurel thickets lush with blossoms. Renee would pick them and stick them to her fingers like diamonds. When we came back down we got ready to go up to the studio, and since that walk goes right by the wrens' nest I thought I'd look into it.
I reached up and in and my fingers found a cold lumpy thing, pulling out a tiny dead hatchling. "Oh, a dead baby bird," I said, and Renee sighed, "Oh," with mutual sadness. I reached in again. This time it was another cold lumpy thing, but it moved, ever so slightly when I wrapped my fingers around it, and I cried out, "This one is alive!" Renee got very excited about this, and I was, too, somehow putting aside all the logic that said there was no way that we could bring this tiny, tiny thing back from the brink.
It was SO tiny. It's eyes were shut, but bulged out, and it was mostly naked, except for a dusting of down on top of its head. It was no more than an inch and a half long. Only, I shouldn't say was, because the little thing is alive! We breathed on it to get it warm and quickly made up some sugar water first. It took it, so weakly, and I kept saying to Renee, "It's so tiny, I don't know if we can really help it." But then we looked up on the internet what to feed it (cat food ground up, oats ground up, hard-boiled egg yolk, and mixed with water) and we made some up, all the while holding it in my hand to keep it warm, and breathing on it. Then we made up a hot water bottle, and made a little nest for it in a box, and within a few hours it was cheeping ever so slightly when we opened the lid.
I don't know what a miracle is. I don't know what will happen to this little lump of wren-life. All I can say is that, amidst all that dies, all that falls, all that doesn't quite make it through this world, this morning a cold, blind, naked bird rested in my palm, barely alive, and I breathed on it, and held it close, and took it upon myself to do what I could. And now when it hears my voice it opens its little mouth wide, cheep, cheep, cheeping. That's miracle enough for me. |
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