BIrd Funeral

A mango tree shades the house in Sri Racha. Birds roost on the branches. Our next-door neighbor hates the tree. Its leaves fall into their yard. The tree cools down both houses, but the neighbor only sees the leaves and the other week she called up the electricity office to trim the tree, while we were away. I wanted to say something to her, but Mam advises to keep a jai yen on these matters, since a cool head is easier to live with than a hot heart. I smiled at her without humor. She smiled back wondering what I would do to right her wrong. I smiled again communicating that my revenge was only in my mind and she smile with gratitude. The Thais have more names for a smile than a Wall Street banker has for ripping off money from the taxpayers. This week a small bird fell from the tree in front of Fenway and me. Its mother swooped to the ground and attempted to get its baby to fly, but the little bird was grounded by a broken wing. Fenway is almost four year-old. He grabbed the little bird and put its body in a box, promising to heal its wing. His mother and I knew the truth. Mam was younger than me, but it had been a long time since either of us had been three years old. We fed the little bird rice and its mother came to visit the stricken bird. Our efforts fell short and three days ago the little bird expired in the night. In the morning Mam asked me to bury the bird. "Is that what Thais do with dead birds?" "I not want cat eat." "Okay." I sat down at the computer and searched google for 'thai bird burial'. Tibetan sky burials covered the first five pages and no narrowing or broadening of the search words returned a traditional Thai bird burial ceremony, so I decided to give the little bird a sky burial. Years ago I had been trekking around the Ganden Monastery in Tibet. Tim Challen and I were accompanied by two Canadian women who had been attending the Women conference in Beijing. Scores of golden vultures were gliding to a cliff top overlooking a fog shrouded river. A gargoyle of a man stood over a human body. He held a savage cleaver in both hands. His bald head glistened with sweat, as he hacked the corpse into smaller pieces. A monk watched from a short distance. His prayers were a mantra caught by the wind. The vultures came to his call and swallowed chunks of flesh whole. "What are they doing?" The girl from Toronto asked with wide eyes. "A sky burial. Tibetans and Zorasterians believe that putting a body in the earth defile the world, so they let the vultures take them." I had read about this rite in Francis Younghusband's journal about his invasion of Tibet. "It's disgusting." Ann was a homeopathic nurse. She hated the sight of blood. The burial butcher turned around and waved for us to come closer. The two girls argued about the sanctity of this moment. Tim and I hadn't traveled thousands of miles to miss such a sight. "If you want to keep walking, go ahead." Tim was young. 18 years old. British. This was something neither of us would ever see again. "You can't be serious." Ann's friend was a squat feminist who had little use for men other than cadge good off them. "Dead serious." Tim and I joined the sky burial. The two women stomped off in anger. The vultures hobbled over the rocks to pick at the flesh. Their skull were red. The sun broke through the clouds. Tim and I looked at the dead man's face. He wasn't wearing a smile. We left before the butcher chopped apart the skull. Somethings were better left to the imagination. The little bird didn't require such a strenuous effort. I went outside and chucked the still body onto the roof. I didn't bother to say any prayers. I didn't know any for dead birds. "What you do with bird?" Mam asked with Fenway hugging her legs. "I took care of it right." "Sure." "I've been to Tibet. I know what to do with the dead bird." I certainly know what they would do with me, if given the chance.