The Beak of the Finch

In most places on this Planet, the sight of a dead bird is so rare that it shocks us, even scares us. We recoil as if something has gone wrong in the cosmos, as if a shutter has creaked open that should have been kept closed, exposing a shadow world beyond our world, a place we were not meant to see.

But on the desert island of Daphne Major, dead birds are commonplace. They are everywhere. The lava is always littered with wishbones and beaked skulls. Whole seabirds lie outstretched here and there as if still in flight, odorless and mummified like feathered pharaohs in the dry and desiccating heat. Each generation lies where it falls, and the next generation builds on the ruins of the one before. They hatch in a morgue, breed in a crypt, and lie down with their ancestors, as if here not only life but death too is asking to be watched.

Evolution discloses a meaning in death, although the meaning is like some of the berries that Darwin tasted in the Galapagos, “acid & Austere.” There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. Even drought bears fruit. Even death is a seed.

Jonathan Weiner

The Beak of the Finch

New York: Vintage; 1994

Submitted by:

Jeanne M. Marrazzo, MD, MPH

Seattle, WA 98122

• Copyright ©2004 by the American College of Physicians