Funeral For A Mockingbird Poem by Juan Olivarez

There was a dead bird on the grass,
Next to the sidewalk.
It's life had fled, somewhere up high,
Higher than it could ever have hoped to fly,
Into the infinite.

The twisted neck, the half shut eyes,
The wings outstretched,
As if, only, one final time,
They could lift him high and away,
From all Earthly dangers.

For some reason I envisioned,
In my minds eye,
The sweet little bird flying,
Headlong into the telephone wire,
Dying instantly, painlessly.

For other than the twisted neck,
There were no signs of violence,
On it's fragile avian body.
Only a few feathers,
Scattered ignominiously around.

Then a terrible, and inexplicable sadness,
Completely overwhelmed me.
And my body started to shake,
And from somewhere deep inside my soul my, very being,
A sob wrenched itself loose.

I could not in all honesty explain this.
Was it that I would never hear,
Him sing his songs?
Or dive bomb a cat,
While eying him meticulously from a limb.

Or was it just the obscene way,
That he was lying splayed on the grass.
Feathers all askew,
His toes curled up in the throes of death,
The neck twisted at an impossible angle.

But the merciful wind, in it's infinite wisdom,
Had blown a paper bag up against the fence.
This then, became the mockingbirds coffin.
And his funeral procession lead straight to my backyard.
As one last time, he visited his neighborhood.


There underneath a hackberry tree,
Filled with the berries,
That his folk love so much,
His broken little body nestled,
Into the welcoming arms of the Earth.

I would be a liar, if I said, I knew what made me,
Bring him home, to rest eternally, in the shade,
Of my hackberry tree.
But God knows, I was so happy and glad,
I could do that for him.

And today, after the passing of so many years,
There are many such trees,
All around my home.
And it seems that every single limb, is filled,
With carefree, sweet, singing mockingbirds.

2/4/12 Alton Texas