Roadside Reminiscence Poem by Albert Ahearn

The sun was shinning and no cloud cover
Was in view. Few cars this early traversed
The road making my ride decidedly
Safer and serene. I couldn’t contrive
In my mind a more beautiful Sunday.
I was consciously consumed; contented
When suddenly I spotted something steel-
Gray not far ahead of me. At first I
Thought that it was the usual soft-shoulder
Debris. The closer I came it became
Clear to me what it was, a dead gray bird.
I stopped my bike, dismounted and approached
It. I stooped and lifted the lifeless thing.
Still warm to the touch, that it could have died
A moment ago. Suddenly saddened
By this find a feeling of guilt arose
Within me. Not knowing the nuances,
With bird in hand I began to bemoan
A rush of muted memories flooding
My senses. I stood there alone; alive
Knowing somewhere, someone or some thing soon
Would suffer the same funereal fate.
Guilty because I live to love this day
Sans mother, father, brother and sister.
A cumulus cloud snuck across the sun
Further darkening my melancholy.
I grudgingly gazed down at my fleshy
Bier, still cradling the feathery corpse.
The cloud continued its eternal course
Across the sunlit sky showering me
With prodigious, radiant rays once more.
I knelt and scooped a shallow roadside grave
And placed the little lifeless bird inside
While elegiac verses passed my lips.
As the last of the moistened earth covered
The unmarked grave I gave thanks to my God
For this solemn Sunday reminiscence.