April 19, 2005

I was reading on a Sunday afternoon, waiting for Laura to finish her shift, when the crow circled hesitantly above me. He saw me eating my nuts and shook his black wings, cryingon the nearby branches. The crow looked hungry and aggressive and I was preparing for a showdown.

But instead of attacking, he landed near me and stared. I stood and placed some nuts on the ledge, and he measured the distance with dark, penetrating eyes. he crowed again and came nearer as I sat and picked up my book. The words on the page didn’t make any sense and my heart fluttered. Crows are beautiful. Finally, he approached the nuts, I reached for my camera, and in an instant he was gone.

The nuts were still standing on the ledge and I felt I had wronged him somehow. I wanted him to eat and delight in my offering.

When Laura came I told her about crows. “It’s hard to get birds to trust you even if you’re not planning to eat them,” I said. We went into the seminary’s garden to watch the afternoon welt away. I pointed to the ledge where I left the nuts. And when my lips touched hers and my eyes were closed, the crow came back, screaming and shaking his plumes. We watched him from a distance. He landed on the ledge, ate, and flew away again.

And I smiled. Later, in the parking lot, he circled over our heads and crowed as we lay on the ground — he seemed to share in our ecstasy.