Last year, I rescued three jackdaws
from out of my chimney’s vault

One of their brothers’ body lay
chilled in the midst of ash

I carried them in gloved hands
upstairs and out the window to the

roof above my laundry room, gable
for the world away from indoors

I set birds three upon the edged
brick edge of my old chimney

In the morning, no squeaks or shrieks
remained, only lonesome feathers of

three jackdaw chicks who came of age
in one plunge to near-death and the denouement of wings

Today, I find their cousin or
half-sister dead in the heap of

last Christmas’ ashes. My poor shovel
was meant for more, I think, or perhaps

just that: to carry the weight of entropy.
I picked her up (maybe him) and took her

outside before the watching eye of my
albedo-nigreddo spaniel (those are her middle names)

I dumped her (or his) carcass over the fencerow,
pickets no longer white nor stained nor treated,

but weathered gray from life. She (or perhaps he)
landed on the other side, out of sight, mind,

save but the ashes that fell not like soil
upon a coffin in some ceremonial cemetery

but rather snowing down, a winter of jackdaw,
here in July in the midst of the first triple-digit drought
in living
(or loving)

memory.

Keep jackdaws in mind for the distant future when I start publishing Gergia stories…