Ode to a Dead Bird

The bird was as cold as a rock or a stone,
I wondered aloud where the poor bird had flown,
A small voice came back as a sick wearied sigh
(I had such a fright, I nearly did cry)
"To Europe, Australia, and Asia I've gone,
But my dear restless bird heart always had me move on.
I've flown countless places, upon every breeze,
And then came to Provo--and promptly did freeze."

Freshman year, BYU. My roommates and I were walking to (or from) church (held on campus in the JKHB), slipping and sliding on the icy snow. One of us looked up, into a large, barren tree next to the administration building.

"What is that?" she queried.

The rest of us stopped, squinting up at the leaden gray skies. All the leaves have long since fallen from the tree, and yet there is something stuck in the tree. It looks like...like...a bird? A crow, with its wings stretched out? Stuck in the tree?

Impossible, we decided. It's a piece of garbage, an oddly shaped (black?) leaf, some random bizarre lawn ornament lofted up by improbable winds. Yet there it was. We debated its origin all the way back to our warm and cozy dorm.

The "bird" stayed there for days, taunting us as we went to our Japanese, calculus, or religion classes in that building. And then, one day, it was gone.

But not forgotten. My roommate Mandy, a talented and beautiful poetess, immortalized the bird in two poignant poems.

I looked at a tree and saw a bird frozen to the sky.
The bird was dead,
Its wing were spread,
The ice did glaze its eye.
No more will it swoop and dive and nest,
This bird has gone to eternal rest.