Hawks had started to threaten the crows around my home, so I stopped putting out treats for the them because I couldn’t bear to see the altercations. Their caws receded and were replaced with the trilling, high voice of the hawk (probably the red-tailed hawk, but I’m no expert). A while later, we could hear the incessant, unmistakable voice of a fledgling. There were, in fact, two. Hawk fledglings are funny because they’re only really decipherable by a slight un-tidiness of their feathers, especially without the parents around to compare size.
Eventually, the hawks’ voices faded and as I did yard work, a cacophony of crow sounds surrounded me. I had to finish the grass, clip the bushes, and rake. When I finally was able to go get my bag of peanuts, I watched as one, two, three crows flew away. Maybe they were fed up with my inattention. Maybe they were only coming by to tell me everything that had happened to them. Maybe I was too late.
They fly by just before my alarm sounds at 6:30 AM. It’s like they know, and they’re taunting me: We’ll always miss each other. They’re wild. I’m not.
I’ve still been reading a little bit of everything. I read a book with the longest waitlist I have ever seen. I started at number 200 something. But then couldn’t finish the book. I read another that made me cry because a character died, but then realized the overall message of the book was awful.
Two wonderful books I’ll mention by name: The Island by Antigone Kefala and Islands of Abandonment by Cal Flyn. I haven’t finished Flyn’s book quite yet because I’ve needed to break up the feeling of sadness and frustration. Both books have such gorgeous descriptions. I wish I could write as beautifully lush sentences as them.
One day...
...and one day, I want to wake up by the crows and not an alarm (on purpose, lol). One day, I hope to live a little more wildly.
With love,
Thao
on my shelf:
