"Right Now" there's a spider dying on the pedestal base of the computer monitor. Only noticed it because it was raking its legs like spiders do when they are pulling out silk but I don't think, because the spider is on its back, that is the reason. I think it's a death dance, an eight-legged tarantella in reverse.
Have thought about death alot recently. Just lost another bird, a juvenile magpie found on the road when walking the dogs. Feathered but flightless it had horse hair, probably mane hair, wrapped around the joint of one leg. Tried to remove it but it had cut in so deeply I couldn't be sure I got it all. Took him to UQ yesterday morning. In the afternoon they rang to say the joint was septic. They couldn't be sure he would regain full use of it it or be pain free so they'd put him down.
Again I'd looked in the eyes of this little being, as I did Maggie (magpie) from a month ago, and had seen this very individual one-of-a-kind being staring out at me. I was so certain he'd come home to heal, to be rehabilitated, to learn to fly, to be released. I was crushed when I got the news. That "person", that one-of-a-kind, no bird like him before or ever after, had graced this earth for only a short time and now is forever absent. His paents will rear others babies. I will forget him in time. What was the purpose of his existence?
All life is sacred, all unique - even as I vacuum the dozens if not hundreds of invading bugs which have swarmed through the house this spring. Soft-bodied brown beetles with orange flashes visible when they fly. I feel guilty even as I position the vacuum nozzle over them. I am sure each one of them is an indiidual too. Why don't I squirm with guilt?
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