Birds have had a profound and far-reaching effect on me and the thoughts which have guided my life. Basically, all my philosophies revolve around an experience I have had with nature, but especially birds. My first real experience with birds came when I was a very ignorant child of about six.
My parents divorced when I was three years of age. I went to visit my father when I was six. This was one of only four or five occasions. It was a very cold fall deep in the woods of Moselle, Mississippi. The woods and swamps, rivers and streams, gave a young country boy great cause for exploration and happiness.
My father, whose serious mental problems plagued his whole life, had a serious obsession with guns. He bought me a BB gun which I seemed to have enjoyed. I do not remember if he gave me any instructions as far as what I could or could not shoot. There were no houses nearby and traffic hardly ever came down the road. The roads were typically named after most of our neighbors and family. In fact, one such road which turned down a steep hill close by my grandparent’s house, Watkins Road, was named after my uncle Harmon Watkins.
I remember the chilled weather and the dark denim jacket that I wore that time of year. Maybe it seemed colder to me because I was younger. Maybe it was actually colder during those years. Perhaps, such memories are just cloaked in a shroud of cold, gray, bleakness.
I never had a BB gun before and began to explore the many things that I could target. The trees were plentiful and their branches were naked of leaves. Fog came from my breath as I breathed heavily in search of something to shoot.
Songbirds filled the air as they do in the forests of Mississippi, perhaps as they do nowhere else in North America. I walked no more than forty yards from the house and saw a cardinal sitting on a branch all by itself. It was singing so beautifully and my heart filled with a sudden desire to capture it and to be able to touch it.
I certainly had no desire to kill anything at that age. I am not sure that I had developed a strong enough theory of mind to know how other things felt. I was certainly not aware of my own actions and their effects, good or bad, right or wrong. But come what may I really wanted to touch that beautiful bird; to feel its feathers and touch its orange beak.
I pumped up my air rifle and took a careful first aim. I missed. I took aim at the songbird again and pulled the trigger. He was facing away from me and looking to his right.
What was he thinking? Was he enjoying the weather? Did he have children or a wife? Was there anyone eagerly anticipating his return to the nest? Such thoughts never entered my mind. There was a short, loud, SNAP! as I fired my weapon into the cold autumn air. The way that the bird fell from the limb really caught my attention. It must have taken several seconds for it to reach the ground.
He fell like the weightless yellow leaf falls from the twig in fall weather. There was a definite twirling motion as he nose-dived into the brown weeds underneath the large, dark oak tree. My heart raced with excitement at the thought of touching a bird; those ever-evasive little creatures which took flight every time I approached.
I was told once that if I wanted to catch a bird, an infatuation I had for the longest time, that I simply had to put salt on their tails. So, it was not uncommon for the saltshaker to go missing from the kitchen table at my granny’s house. Sometimes she would even hand the shaker to me and with an excited voice as she pushed me out the front door would say, “there’s one! Hurry up before he flies away! Go! Go!” But more than likely, she just wanted to keep me outside during the daylight hours.
As I got closer to where I saw the bird fall my eyes began frantically searching the ground, my heart beating faster and faster. I have to admit I really had no idea what I was going to find. But as I searched the weeds, which were nearly as tall as my chest, I found the tunnel in the grass his body made as he fell. I stuck my hand in and was simply overwhelmed that I had caught a bird for the first time in my life.
I ran back to the house to show my father who came to the door. I eagerly presented the bird to him, much like a dog or cat would a squirrel that they had recently killed, to which he told me to go throw it away and not to shoot anymore birds. It was not long after that in which I began to realize that I had killed the bird and his body was of no value. I cried, and eventually, sobbed uncontrollably over the cruelty that I had committed. And even then, not so much at what I had done as far as killing the bird, but that the little bird would never fly again, that it would be a bird no more.
This is still, in my opinion, the absolute worst thing I have ever done in my entire life. By that I mean, it is one of the handful of things I wish I could take back. A feeling I do not encounter with the other mistakes I have made in life. It was just such a horrible thing to do, to have taken that poor little bird’s precious and beautiful life. It is often the fact, as I got older, that he was not even expecting it that bothered me the most. That he was just doing what birds do and I interrupted the whole process. At forty, it is still tough to write about.
The second time as a child that a bird would have such an intense effect on my life was at about the age of eight. My mother and step-father Stan, along with us four kids, lived in a place called Clarksdale, Mississippi. I was the proud owner, to everyone’s dismay, of a long black slingshot. In Clarksdale, I often chased large frogs and dug them out of their hiding places in the ground. I also collected about fourteen snakes during the short time we lived there.
There was not as much countryside available as I was used to and I was often in trouble with the neighbors. I remember the incident with the bird I am about to describe clearly even after all these years. Sometimes, I am just not sure why I endeavored to do the things that I did. I can say, however, that they were done without any thought; just actions followed by consequences. The heavy burdened process of learning.
I believe that it was once again late autumn or maybe early winter. I just don’t remember any sunshine. I was walking about with my slingshot attached to my left arm. I had a rock in the sling and was tromping about ready to shoot whatever I could find. I was eagerly searching for something as I made my way back home when, suddenly, on a branch right next to a small tree I had just walked underneath, there was a large black bird; maybe it was a crow.
I thought he might fly away because I was so unbelievably close to him, so we just stared at each other for several moments. His large blue eyes blinking occasionally. I never imagined that I would have time to shoot him. Afterall, we were staring each other right in the face. I could have literally stretched out my arm and touched him. When I realized that the bird was not about to fly away, I pulled back on my sling and took aim. The bird just looked at me. Did he see me? Was he blind?
I let the rock fly from my slingshot. It hit the giant black bird right in the chest and small black feathers left the bird as the rock connected with his tender bones. I was, once again, amazed and ran home to show my mom. This time, however, it was a much different experience. The giant bird was still alive. For the moment it had gone according to plan. I finally captured a bird and was going to keep it as a pet. Yet, somehow, still totally unaware of the damage I had caused. The pain that I had inflicted on another living creature still unable to be processed in my tiny brain.
I arrived at the house as my mom and Stan were getting ready to leave for the grocery store. I showed them my prize and, momentarily, I was excited. They said I couldn’t keep it and I began to cry and scream. Finally, they told me to put the bird on the back porch until we got back; that they were ready to go. I told them if I put him on the back porch he would fly away. They promised that the bird wasn’t going to go anywhere. However, I was still adamant. Then my mom told me that because I shot the bird that he would probably die.
This made me feel terrible and I began to sob. After several minutes of fighting they convinced me to put the black bird on the back porch and we would check on him once we returned. I cried and threw a fit all the way to the grocery store and, likewise, for the entirety of the time we were gone.
I only became excited once again as we began to approach the house on our way home. My heart began to flutter at the hope of finding the bird walking around on the back porch ready for his new life. Sadly, this was not the case. The large black bird was dead and stiff. I remember the way his large, blue, empty, cold eyes looked. It saddened me in a way that I still am not able to fully describe. Unfortunately, this would not be the last time I would kill a bird.
Fast-forward about sixteen years later. I am not sure that anything regarding the killing of this bird was remotely like the first two with the exception that it was a large black bird.
It was a hot summer day in south Mississippi; full humidity. I was at a place called the Windham House. This was what we refer to in the south as an “old folks’ home.” Me and another guy named JT were working for a guy named John. He owned a small grass cutting business and we were there at the Windham House, as we were every two weeks during the summer, simply cutting the grass and weed-eating. There was quite a bit of grass to cut there so me and JT each had a mower going at the same time. I only had a small amount to cut before I would start weed-eating. We would almost always finish at the same time and meet back at the truck.
On this extremely hot day I had just made my first round or two on the mower. I was working in an area that was just a small amount of neatly kempt lawn near the entrance gates. Upon my next loop I noticed that there was a small area in the weeds that was laid down as if something was lying there. I made one more cut then I got off my mower to see what it was. I left the mower going and walked over to the small patch in the weeds that had caught my attention.
As I left the mower, I walked over to the spot I saw in the tall grass. A black bird startled me as he flew away from the spot I was approaching and went to a nearby tree for a couple of seconds. After it looked back, it flew off to a more distant place and continued to watch me with eagerness. I approached the spot in the weeds with caution, and as I peeked over I saw another black bird that was lying there, slightly squawking at my approach. He didn’t move and he never even picked up his head. I wondered what was wrong with him but decided to let him be. My past experience with birds flashed before me and I knew it was better not to get involved.
However, as I made several more passes, I began to think about the possibilities of what might be wrong with the bird. I thought that since he didn’t pick up his head when I approached, maybe he flew into a tree and broke his neck. Next, I thought of the fire ants finding him and how they would eat him alive, which could take several hours. I then began to think that maybe a wild cat would get him and tear him to shreds. As I made another pass and wiped sweat from my brow, I began to feel sorry for the bird who must surely be injured, thirsty, and hungry.
On the next pass I stopped, got off the mower which was still running, and walked over and simply picked-up the bird. The bird just lay there in my hands. He didn’t seem to be able to fly or otherwise move at all. I made what I thought was an extremely difficult decision.
As we finished cutting the grass, we blew off the parking lot with our blowers and walked back to the truck. After we threw our blowers onto the back of the truck we got into the vehicle and slammed our doors closed. I had to slam my door twice. The inside of the vehicle was so hot that it was difficult to breathe even with the windows down and to make matters worse, there was no air conditioner. I told him that I found a black bird in the weeds. His immediate response affected me deeply.
“Yeah, I know. He’s been there for months, he’s blind. You didn’t kill it did you!?” he shouted with a deep stare.
“How was I to know? I thought he was going to suffer,” I returned immediately and truthfully.
“You killed it!?” he yelled once more looking deeply at me.
“Yes!” I shouted, still in disbelief that he already knew about the bird.
“No! You shouldn’t have done that! He was fine! The other birds were feeding him. He was only blind. How did you kill it!?” he wanted to know. I just looked over at him for a moment, then looked away. “You ran over him with the lawn-mower, didn’t you?!” he shouted again. I sat quietly looking out my window.
The lesson this taught me took time to comprehend completely at the substrate level, not to say that it has been fully comprehended. I still had to force myself to concentrate on my work for the rest of the day. I had killed an innocent bird when I had no right or authority to do so. I was apparently under a grave misapprehension as to the birds’ situation. He died because of how I felt and what I thought I knew. What I thought was in the best interest of another living creature.
This was honestly the beginning of my belief that I had not the right, the knowledge, the place, or whatever, to kill anything and I would try my hardest to never kill anything again. But the struggle became should I even resort to killing in extreme circumstances? And how would I recognize these circumstances? I thought I had recognized them in this situation but obviously I didn’t.
Working on a large farm in Mississippi I heard the story from the landowner about one of his horses that I will never forget. He relayed to me that one day while he was at work he received a phone call from his wife who was at home. The horse barn was on fire and the horses had broken out.
The horses were fine, save for one, a much older one, who tried to jump the fence an impaled herself on a corner post. Since she was older she wasn’t able to jump as high as she once could. So the owner had to take a tractor and lift her off the post. But first, he had to shoot her.
Another story told to me by my father was a farm situation as well. This was during the “dropping” season when mother cows were having their babies. One mother cow was not able to drop and she was found lying down by a tree about to die from exhaustion.
Afraid of losing both the calf and the mother cow he took a chain and tied the mother by the neck to the tree. Then he took another chain and tied around the calf’s feet while still inside the mother and pulled it out with the tractor. Of course, this choked the mother to death, but it was much better than watching her suffer, being unable to give birth. The calf survived, thankfully.
Honestly,everything considered, I still don’t know what’s right or wrong, good or bad, intentions, morals, meaning, context, etc.; a grocery list of confusion is all I can ever come up with. There are however only three things I wish I could take back when retrospecting my life: killing each of those three birds.
I know it’s not much, but I have been holding these thoughts to myself my whole life and I would like to dedicate this text to those three innocent birds whose life I took so abruptly and without good reason; if reason even matters.
THE END
Thank you for your vulnerability with sharing this. I understand. May you feel freer with releasing these words. I know for myself that writing it out through poetry helps me let it go. In that self love what I seek somehow finds me. Bless you 🙏❤️
Oh gosh, you wrote this so beautifully! It's very tragic, but there's so much meaning and depth behind it. Sometimes, some decisions may not make any sense or seem moral but are done regardless. This piece makes me also think about executions and life support in terms of the idea of being in control of when/how someone dies, as well and just suffering/death in general. Thank you for being vulnerable and sharing this.