Friday, September 15, 2006

That time of year.

A sudden mood came on me yesterday--on the whole street, really--that was unlike my usual contrived madnesses. Rather, I stood on the sidewalk, fouled in the leash and wet socks, without a tantrum in sight. The dogs were still--and the squirrels, and the sky had turned that brief tangerine particular to evenings after rain. And we waited and then watched as a flock of geese and a handful of crows passed directly--almost deliberately--over each other on crisscrossing paths. No fuss. No frantics. Not a squawk. Just a silent, pointed changing of the guard that seems to have been staged for and by that one swift moment. And we all necessary participants.

So I wasn't suprised to find this in the mailbox on coming in. And if its pages happened to have a tangerine tint, I didn't question it. And if the first paragraphs chronicled the flight of a strange black bird over a sleepy city, they went by unremarked.

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