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All I can hear is the constant cawing of the crows outside, they flock in the pine tree there because the branches are thick and there is ample space to hide and peer in windows and spy on the comings and goings of the young people here who walk with the striding confidence of youth. I wonder if they spy in my windows too. And what they might see. But I know that I watch them, as I eat my morning breakfast, an English muffin with peanut butter and honey, or maybe a fried egg, and while I look at my food as I eat and taste the sweetness I also see the crows eating worms or dancing around in the grass that is just barely green with the snow melted and the sun finally shining. It shines differently now, now that winter seems to be on the wane, now that the days are longer and the air is warmer and even the clouds look different, like spring clouds instead of winter clouds. All I can hear is the crow outside.
When you called on the phone and we tried to have a conversation of what we were doing with our days, what we were reading or thinking about, all I could do was watch the crow dance. It was one claw up, then the other, and a flutter of wings that were such a deep black I thought maybe they had caught a bit of the night in them and held the night tightly in the feathers where it couldn’t get away as the rest of the night disappeared around the globe and was night somewhere else besides here. You talked and I listened, or half listened, and still watched the crow dance. I tried to mimic it and you asked me what I was doing because you could hear my breathing change, and maybe I missed a place where I should have said uh-huh and I didn’t. I said I was doing a crow dance, shaking a tail feather, right? Isn’t that what we always said as kids, running around the playground? We were shaking a tail feather, doing a dance with our behinds wagging out there in the breeze as if they were detached from the rest of our bodies and dancing all on their own out there, so far out. You weren’t sure whether to laugh or to be annoyed that I wasn’t listening. So I told you, its ok, you can be annoyed, I am sorry. I am listening now. Its just that the crows outside are making so much noise and all I can do is stand at the window and watch them as they spy back at me, or hop from one branch to another then disappear in the shadows of the pine tree. Someone throws a cigarette butt out the window from the floor above mine and I want to yell up at them, say stop that, what do you think you are doing littering in the crow yard, distracting the crow dance? But I don’t, and instead I turn my attention back to you, and accidentally caw into the phone.