Robin Suicide Poem by Lonnie Hicks

A robin committed suicide today
dead against my living room window pane;
flying fast in chilly mid-November;
perhaps heading south.

The sound; wings blurred; a thump!
he went straight to ground.

He should have missed the house,
it's large, the window is below the roof,
he was not flying blind
or forgot to look.

Like a jet with no flaps down,
he hit the window full-throttle;
smashing pain.

I got up took a look
expecting him to fly or stir
but he didn't move below; lay quiet.

I went down to see.
Robin, older, neck awry
didn't stir, didn't move.
no silent cry.

Neck broken.
Instant Death.
Instant Oblivion,

I looked for mourners.
There were none.

This Robin was solo in Death as we all are;
on his own.

It didn't seem fitting
to conduct a garbage-can burial,
I said a few words, cursed,
and decided to bury him in dirt.


Picked him up by his tail plumage
took him to the back yard;

dug a shallow grave, mumbled something;
lay him down in there;
patted the top of his dirt pyre
my good deed done.

A dead robin in my yard,
by my window undone.
But, I was thinking was he really a deliberate suicide?


There were clues.
How can a Robin miss
a big house,
there must be more hints
to this dead Robin mystery.


Perhaps he was an old Robin, diseased,
disoriented by Alzheimer's, or a bird pandemic;

could have been a bird fight
he fled,
The Crows around here are criminals and rough;
the Robin could have been bested in a West Side Story Bird Fight.

I rose to look for myself;
to look for clues to Robins' death,
not content for the time being
to dismiss it lightly
as dumb bird lost.

So... from Robin's height my window pane looks straight
on through the house, out through the back windows and
out into the trees in my backyard.

Ah ha; Robin's keen eyes
could have been looking at
my backyard trees,
flying straight and hard, not seeing
the window pane. Blam and there you are-
an explanation which made some sense
Robin in seeing his destination could not see what was right before him;
Death with painful irony.

His grave lay beneath those trees
he was so intent
to reach.
Dead Robin flying fast,
gaze fixed upon his own death.
How Shakespearean.

I think final destinations,
as in where we will die:
inside hospitals, on the road,
in a plane for most of us
is unknown.

My robin could see his own demise;
the means to him were clear and unclear;
my window, both opaque
and transparent
was right there before him.

Ah, again how Shakespearean.
A Robin causality;

wonder if he had kids.