In the Grass

He lowered his head and darted through the grass, flushing a hen from off her nest, then zeroing in on the day-old chicks instead of the mother whose decoy trick had failed to lure him away. In the time it took for me to notice this, he'd broken the necks of two of the chicks and torn the skin from off their backs and heads. The taste of their blood had deafened him to my commands, so I went to him like an angry god and chased him away with my staff and rod, inflicting a wound also in his side for him to go on licking, to wash their blood from off his tongue with his own blood, and then I kneeled in the grass to regard his kill while the mother keened inside the woods not far away. Oh, what a mess they were with their heads snapped back and wings unhinged. I picked up the bodies like bloody socks and prayed to the god in charge of this field for my own weakness to feel this much for slaughtered chicks. For an understanding of his need to kill the most vulnerable thing, whether hungry or not.