There’s a magpie in my garden

With a fat worm hanging from her beak

Every morning she comes
Stalking through the buttercups.
She doesn’t take shit from anyone.
Particularly the blackbirds. She really hates blackbirds.
Every morning she comes
Swooping after them.
She smashes them into the glass doors of my bedroom.
You’d think they would learn to stay away.
But they don’t.
Every morning.
BAM!
I am still in bed
And under the blanket my body freezes and for a second I am afraid
That I will find a blackbird on my patio
Growing stiff and cold.
I am afraid I will find her dead, who moments ago could fly.
I am so afraid I don’t look out the window.
Instead I open my computer, as a distraction, obstruction,but it is just a conjunction of her lifeless eyes
And mine
That are still alive.
So I remind myself that animation becomes inanimate and millions have died in this hour
This minute?
It does not help.
I tell myself a life is not more impactful because it impacted mine.
But reason cannot rationalize what reason doesn’t know.
So I hurt, for her who cannot hurt anymore.