December 1, 2012

All right, it's December first, and 70 degrees, headed up to 80 today, a near record high, who knows since the record is 82 we might surpass it.  It's odd and unsettling that it feels more like spring but looks more and more like fall, so much brown and gold now.  When I drove through League City yesterday, I noticed the pecan trees are turning that dark greeny gold they get before they go completely vibrantly yellow!  Still I am wondering what the trees are experiencing when the temperatures and humidity are very spring like and their natures are telling them "Let go, it's fall."
This morning there are not many birds out but I have heard the crows in the distance.  Their voices carry a long way, deeper and rougher than the jays, more cawing than squawking.  Closer to the window there are not birds at the moment and only the tiniest of breezes.  The big sycamore down the street has lost most of its leaves, the remaining ones mostly brown now.  Even the white pines are looking yellower, but that could be drought and not fall, though they do lose needles and their cones are still opening. 

The sky is such . . . perfection, blue with just enough white fluffy clouds to be interesting.  Reminds me of a line from Richard Bach's Illusions, "Did you ever see the sky when it wasn't perfect?"  Well for me, sunny is preferable to gray and overcast, but no, I don't believe I have ever seen a sky that wasn't perfect for that moment.  Even stormy skies, that peculiar "tornado" green, even the darkest, most thundery clouds are somehow perfect for the moment they exist.  But today, well, I am enjoying the high bright blue, the sunshine, and the smattering of clouds.

I sent a poem a while back by poet Jim Moore.  I liked his poem so much I ordered one of his books.  His poems seem so familiar, like something I have read a hundred times, or might have written in another life.  I guess I am trying to say, his poems talk to me on a very personal level and you all will probably be seeing them in the future.  He notices a lot of the same things I notice, and says things I wish I had said, or seen, or experienced.  He is generous in his sharing, and I'm glad to have discovered his work.   Here is one that talked to me of crows and children . . .

What Works for Me

                         for Mira, age 9

The day's first sparrows work for me,
and bats on summer nights
coming near, then veering away.
And the morning's first suspicious crow--
fearful, greedy--
when it come slowly cawing down
to its favorite branch.
You point at its glowing eyes
and when it caws three times,
break out laughing.
When the crow flies away,
you look at me astonished,
as if to say, what happens next,
after greed and fear
just give it up and fly away?

Jim Moore

When I get to school sometimes, a crow will be sitting at the point of the brick porch roof over the entrance.  He often says nothing, but sometimes will caw, and continue cawing while I walk from the truck into school.  Sometimes he is there when I come out, still on the roof, or moved to one of the light poles in the parking lot near the entrance.  It may not be the same one all the time, but looks the same to me.  I find the big birds, the ones easily seen and recognized, fascinating.  Vultures, crows, egrets, pelicans, all live in the area and all have secret lives and some public days.  Vultures can be seen along the roads, and pelicans near the bay, egrets rarely in my own yard, but crows are everywhere, telephone lines, fences, parking lots, schools, malls, a common sight yet still one that will make me take notice, so not common enough to be ignored.  Don't you wish greed and fear would just give it up and fly away?  Look at what's happening in the world, in our government, in our own lives, yep, I wish greed and fear would just up and fly away, but somehow I can never see the crow as greedy or fearful, but I can see in it the darkness we are uneasy about, the harsh voice telling us to straighten up and fly right.