A Burial

A lifeless house sparrow lays dead In the middle of the towpath As if asleep on a green sheet; Its body still warmed by the sun That one could mistakenly guess Its demise was moments before My arrival except that its Only exposed eyeball was gone Indicating an earlier Death. No decomposers arrived As yet, usually the maggot Flies are the first at a death scene. I picked up the feathery corpse And buried it beside the path.