~The Blackbird.~

We do not know, the lives of birds. In the forest, we can not see so high. The canopy extends so much farther than the eyes of a deer can. Even those of us with wings... they can not reach the top of the canopy, where the birds gather in a net of branches. Up there, they flit to and fro in the green and golden world.

How do I know? My friend, the bluebird, told me as much. That is how I know.

He told me, his feathers ruffling to catch the heat of the day, that it was brighter up there with the birds. You could see the sun, he told me. There was no canopy above him, just the blue sky we as deer only glimpse through the trees sometimes, and stare in to above the pond, but cannot reach like my friend the bluebird can. He can skim it, he says, and it feels like water. It feels like home to the bluebird in the trees. There is constant song unlike the ones we hear. It is a whispering song, interspersed with trills and twitters and the occasional squawk of upset or caw of a large crow come to tell of the activity of De Drinkplaats as he had seen it. There is always a shade of gold on the air, he told me. It is like the pollen that floats among the deer has dyed that air.

The place sounds beautiful, I think. Though I am only a deer, I would love to fly that high. Maybe I would be a crow or a white dove when I grow up, when I can keep our magic.

The birds have no magic, though, seeing as they do not need it. The bluebird told me how it felt to have wind beneath his little wings. He told me that he could sing. He told me that he could teach me to, but that he would only stay awhile, until I grew up, but not all the time. Right now, he said, that he had to fly away. I jumped up, hoping to catch him and bring him back, but my little teeth snapped down on his wing. He cried out, dropped to the ground.

I tried to say sorry, but he just would not reply... he would not wake up. No more would I hear of the secret life of birds. I did not know my own strength. Burying my nose in his feathers, I cried tiny tears.

The secret life of birds is fragile. The secret life of deer, well... that is something I have yet to find out.