Feathers

I’m thinking of the bird that flew into the window
and broke its neck and ended up head first
in a snow bank, and how in the morning it was picking
sunflower seeds and deciding which branch
to perch on so it could crack them open, and then
going back for more seeds and later back again,
but now it is cold and still and feathers and calcium
and protein, and what a difference life is from death
and how I remember it for the sound its wings made.