The day started out lovely, late summer in Arizona,
had been deliciously fraught with clouds, muting
desert sun’s inferno smile. Around dawn, a brief
cloudburst brought delight to ears, eyes and mind.
A school day, but, first, a quick trip to the front porch
to sit on a black widow-webbed chair.

Three of the seven cats out front, and only moments
had passed when I noticed a bird-in-mouth. Cats
have been around practically all my life, though,
usually one at a time. I remember rescuing a mouse
from the family cat at a young age, holding it by
the tip of its tail to deposit it somewhere safely.
And, I saw it climb its body, and then its tail,
to bite me! There is a soul-shock that comes
when what we righteously rescue bites us in
panic and moot ignorance.

I couldn’t help myself, I jerked my hand away
from the mouse’s teeth, and it went flying,
never to be seen, again. So started my crusade
of saving prey from cats.

Anyway, I jumped up, grabbed Bug by the scruff,
and took the bird from his mouth. I saw it was
an Aztec Dove, the smallest gem of our desert doves.
I ran into the house yelling for my daughter
to come help, and rushed out back to the divided
rabbit pen. She opened the top, and I placed the dove
inside the unoccupied side. It was in shock, and
lie there, limp but breathing. One wing was
awkwardly skewed, and a leg, up in the feathers,
was bleeding slightly. There are differences in degrees
of injuries cats inflict, and I wasn’t sure how badly
the bird was hurt.

Over the next hour, I got the girls ready and off to school,
checking on the bird occasionally. He stayed dazed
for the next couple of hours. Finally, mid-morning,
its eyes were bright and its demeanor alert. Cats
hovered under and to the side of the wire pen, causing
the dove to move around the cage, producing
a stronger flow of blood from its wounded leg.

I saw I had created a ‘no-win situation’,
wondered if I should give the dove back to the cats,
knew I couldn’t, but I also knew the bird was dying,
possibly in great pain. When prey is caught by a predator,
they go into a type of shock and don’t feel pain
as they are dying. Their eyes get a dulled, hopeless look,
and they try to escape more by reflex than awareness.

So the day went. Every time I checked on the dove,
there was a cat or several eye-balling its half dead essence.
It disturbed me, and I kept thinking I should have left
the small dove to its cat-fate…

I went to pick up my youngest daughter from school
at 3:00 pm, showed her the dove, which was still alive.
A half hour later, it was dead, on its back, by the bowl
of water and a jar lid of birdseed I had
placed in the cage earlier.

And, a cat sat underneath the pen,
watching the dead bird…

Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
© Copyright 10/3/05