Cheap Rhyme for a Dead Bird. (whose funeral was a rather undignified affair.)

T'was an October evening when first we laid eyes on it,
Dead, first and foremost, and also small, black and winged;
In a rather ugly pose it lay, a dead bird in a heap,
We gawked, we gaped, and then together, we all screamed.

We screamed, 'Bloody murder!' and we screamed when it flinched
It looked so ready to squawk all wide and awake.
But it really was just our nerves that on our eyes played tricks,
The bird was gone, finished, and dead.

Still we were screaming for we were beside ourselves with terror,
The sight of Death on our terrace far too much to bear.
At last a voice rang out, 'It croaked! and will squawk no further!
Now quieten down! you idiots with neither guts nor dare!'

Around it we milled like ants bereft of their scent,
No one wanted to touch it, even to just throw it out.
We were lost, confused, and really, scared out of our pants.
And the bird looked ready to rot while around it we crouched.

At last a spark sparked in my brain, and into the room I ran.
I took a book and tore out a page, we agreed anyway it was all trash.
With superior dexterity and uncanny control I executed my plan:
To scoop up the bird and throw it out, its final flight to its rest.

With a little nudging and shifting and coaxing
(I was rather unwilling to touch the creature you see,)
I set the bird nicely onto the page, as if it were just sleeping,
Then I was ready, all set to go, to cast the bird out into the night, finally, free!

And all this time the others loomed over my shoulder,
And had it in their minds to go, 'Squawk!' and set me screaming.
Ha! if only they had tried, for my mettle would see me through with nary a tremor
While they, what they lacked in pluck, they made up for in scheming.

But the story goes on, and I took aim and swung
The bird I hoped would land in Nature's green cradle.
But it seems my eye was rather off, and when it all was done,
'Thud!' was what we heard, not the rush of bushes gentle.

Alas, the creature had greatly suffered;
I had committed a terrible crime
Thrown over the rails, bounced off a shed like it didn't matter,
Like it wasn't worth a dime.

So down at the bird we gawked and gaped
And then started our screams anew.
It was just like when the bird was just discovered
With the stares and screaming 'till we were blue.

But we finally had some order restored,
And down the stairs we tumbled,
Ran out into the night and scanned the grassy floor
And saw the bird, dead (and very insulted).

So we stared at it and in a moment of sheer horror,
I almost saw its eyes cast a glassy gaze on me.
But then and again it was dead and a goner,
So it couldn't have been, but what if it could be?

But to the others it was just a poor creature, just a bird,
And so they rounded in a circle and looked down in pity
While it lay dead and undignified like carrion in the moonlit grasses.
And scorn and accusation, they reseved solely for me.

Now you must understand, that I was rather shaken
So at the back I stood and watched, at a loss of what to do.
Then out of the circle he left, and returned
with tissue, white the colour of mourning (procured from the loo).

He carried on to gently shroud the black bird in white,
And we all watched on as he went on, busy with his task.
It seemed that he had in mind to make my wrong right.
And when he was done he scooped it up and cast it into the shrubs.

When that was all good and done we left, hesitantly laughing,
And I was the butt of a fair bit of joking.

But remember now in the bushes not far below my bed.
A bird lies, after much misadventure and adventure, dead.