The birds make a nest in the steer skull that hangs from the north facing beam of the front porch. Their tiny bodies flit in and out of eye sockets, and brain cavities, and places where other life used to flourish.

They make a nest in the old tool bag, thick canvas opened haphazardly and brimming with metal, proof that even inhospitable places sometimes welcome new life.

A flicker dives headfirst into the window behind me; on the couch I feel the reverberations from the glass slightly buckling at my back. A cold sweat washes over me as I search the yard for signs of it.

I weep, digging that hole.

Such beauty, so broken, surreal in the afternoon light. Its neck lay at an impossible angle. I cancel a lunch meeting to grieve alone in the grass near the hellebore I bury it next to.

I come home to a goldfinch in the drive, centered and still as if it has fallen directly from the sky. I marvel at the brilliance of its feathers and how small it is in my hand.

I dig another hole. The children help me cover it, placing a large rock atop the mound of dirt. I find a tick burrowing into my son, who remains calm as it is extracted from him, full to bursting. Isn’t there always something ready to suck you dry.

More than once, a bird flies into the restaurant. Tiny bodies thrash around, slamming against each large window in an attempt to be free. Once, a friend writes me, a little frantic, “there’s a bird inside the building, I hope you’re close by!” Another time, in shock, the small thing lets me pick it up and hold it in my hands. I will my pulse to convey that I would never dream to hurt it. I whisper words of reverence before it rouses from the half-sleep state and flies away.

On a hike around Mountain Lake in later fall, I come across a heron’s wings, no body to be found.

Another year, only a mile or so farther down the trail, a pair of sparrow’s wings, similarly detached, perfectly severed and perfectly preserved. I wonder who was feasting on these bodies and leaving these freedoms behind.

What creature didn’t know how harrowing the sight.

On the farm, a bald eagle descends upon the chickens like a heat seeking missile, making quick work of its prey. I wander out of the trailer in my bathrobe to a cacophony of shrieks and screams. Up close, the eagle seems impossibly large, its eyes speak of things one may not wish to know.

I kick a goose who sets its sights on my daughter. I kick it once, though I should have kicked it twice.

More times than I can count, I lock eyes with the Barred Owl. Our secrets take the same shape, we dance around each other at dusk with the deference of brethren. I hear them singing in the trees at night, I long to join.

The swans return to Cascade Lake each December and I sit quietly by the shoreline in a spot tucked away. I watch them glide effortlessly across the still water with their cygnets close behind. One year there are three. Another year there are seven. They are embarrassingly beautiful and I kick myself for loving them.

A peacock lands in our backyard and lets loose a jurassic squawk that frightens my son so much he bursts into tears. I go door to door asking the neighbors if someone has lost their pet. Finally someone volunteers that they are wild. I return back home with my terrified toddlers. We stare at the iridescent dinosaur perched on our back fence, neck undulating and plumage twitching like a tiger with its eyes focused on a jackrabbit. My son clings to me, burying his face in the crook of my arm.

A red tailed hawk lights from the tall grass beside me at a traffic stop. I am close enough to see the squirming field mouse in its talons, almost hidden by the dead grass that has come up with it in the hunt. It’s the baby’s breath in a bouquet of something that haunts me deeply. Manna to one is a death knell to another. Here we all are, trying to stay alive.

Once, you held out your hand, my heart was a bird, and I just kept soaring.