I was one delivery away from completing my postal route yesterday and I happened upon death in the form of a lifeless crow. His dark corpse startled me, so motionless and large on the sidewalk.

The black bird must be covered in white snow by now. We had flurries last night in Minneapolis. I suppose the other crows will eat him eventually. That would be cannibalism, but meat is meat and a crow has to eat. Omnivores tend not to be picky.

The treetops in the Marcy-Holmes neighborhood are often bustling with noisy crows but on that day all was silent, the leafless branches empty. I have read that crows sometimes fight and murder each other, but I detected no sign of injury. Humans are like that too unfortunately.

In fact, a 40 year-old man was found lying in the street with a gunshot wound at 3:45 this morning in that very same neighborhood. He is dead now like the crow. The newspaper did not publish a name.

People are crazy. On two occasions I have heard someone shooting at the crows in the trees with a handgun. The crows just flew away unharmed in each instance. This maniac should drive out to the country if he wants to do some hunting. Cities are too crowded for bullets. As I said, the dead crow’s plumage betrayed no evidence of fowl play. He likely died of disease, perhaps an avian flu. The crow seemed so fresh in his demise that his little heart may still have been faintly beating. Well, I certainly wasn’t going to attempt CPR and risk another pandemic.

Poor crow! What is one to think when your personal symbol of morality falls simply, unromantically dead? Perhaps symbols serve to distance ourselves from things as much to understand them. I could only dumbly admire the bird’s regal feathers, its ebony claws and keen beak. A part of me wanted to take the crow home for further study, but I continued on my way, placed the letters in the last mailbox and returned to the station.

That night, after a hot shower, I told my family about my dead friend as we ate a hearty soup with potatoes, onions and kale that my wife had prepared. It felt good to be alive in a warm house with such beautiful children instead of a crow lying on its back somewhere on a cold sidewalk.