There was no shortage of crows this morning. It's one of those days when I realised why a bunch of the buggers is known as a "murder". Six bloody thirty on a Sunday morning, and there is a racket on the lawn outside that would drown a Shuttle launch.
I go out and I try to spot them. Today they are secretive, by which I mean there are seven¹. Normally they tumble through the sky, seemingly just for the sport of it, before landing so gracefully in the trees. This is no vulgar bird, the crow. They are smart. They solve problems, are tool-users. They are social, gregarious creatures that seem to have enormous appetites for everything, including life, which they enjoy to the full. Today when I go out they are just watching me, as they did the morning after she died. I'd taken a walk round the neighbourhood, and they'd been on the green, paddling about. When I walked around the path they'd all paused and looked at me.
Christine and I often walked around the green where we live, a huge circular lawn, ideally suited for a small-scale game of cricket. There would be crows, stamping around on the grass picking up who-knows-what and watching us. Occasionally we would move too close, at which they would give us a look of corvine disdain before flapping heavily off to another pecking ground. Christine would occasionally talk to them in their own language (or swear, or ask questions; I don't know) and oftentimes they would respond, but I never understood what they talked about. This was the secret they kept between them.
I wondered for a long time what that secret might be, and now I think I know. The world is a huge place, and we humans proudly strut across it, thinking it belongs to us. We take what we need and we try to have it conform to our will. We divert rivers, build dams, blow the tops off mountains, delve deep in the dark dungeons of the rock beneath. We try to tame it and at the same time abuse it, and then we get all surprised when it responds with natural laws to demonstrate its own power. We build cities in floodplains and act all surprised when the floods come. We plant huge cities in the desert and draw water for lawns and bloody golf courses, and curse when the ground beneath crumbles as it dries.
In some cultures, the crow is considered to be a psychopomp, a being that guides the soul to the afterlife. There are those who believe that God made all this for Man, that it's the perfect gift from a Perfect Being to his once-perfect creation. Arrogant is Humanity, and the crows know it. We try to live forever and we are surprised when we fail.
Life is still good. The sun still comes up, and the crows enjoy their aerobatics. I enjoyed the rain yesterday and the sun today, but I miss you, my love.
Thank you, everyone.
¹ Seven crows can mean a secret, a witch or sickness. This is just superstition, but it fit today.