Here is a piece I wrote in 2018.
The Call of the Crow
Trying to do yoga, I strain and stretch as I lie on top of my fluffy blanket. Looking up at my painted smooth ceiling and then back further, I can see a strip of sky from the two paned window above my bed, now inverted. The wisps of clouds are nearly coalescing into something beautiful and bigger than themselves. I wait for them to become some magnificent shape, like I remember clouds being when I was young, back when they formed all the images from the stories and dreams in my head. But they remain little stringy meshes moving quickly on the wind, like if flavorless cotton candy had been pulled apart and set out on a breeze.
The caw, caw, caws of the crow float into my room, serenading me and my attention. He must be sitting in one of the trees behind the concrete wall just beyond my window. I want to see what the commotion is, but the yoga video playing softly on my laptop says I’m only half way through, so I don’t more than glance at the small block of sky I can see from my reclined position. The chorus of cacophonous calls is somehow more melodic to me than the plinking sounds playing behind the yoga instructor who hushingly tells me to breathe deeply and relax.
What was one bird quickly becomes a symphony. I even see some darts of dark wings across my bit of blue-filled vision. How many they are, or even if they are all crows, I cannot say. I’m supposed to be focusing on my breathing in time with my stretches. But the drama of the unseen birds somehow feels more important than my stiff back or the ache in my shoulder.
Despite the sonorous appeals of the crows, I resolve to finish the yoga session, hoping it will drive away at least a slim slice of my deadly sin of sloth. I know the yoga on my bed isn’t much of a workout, but it’s better than idly laying on my bed, which feels like what I mostly do. Beyond my sloth, a cold is clawing at my throat, so I should be taking it easy, finding some peace and quiet I tell myself. But the black winged creatures squawk and sing again, tempting me to give up. I take a long breath and feel my lungs struggle with the depth of it all.
Thinking I’ve contented myself to making stories in my head, I decide that the birds are trying to give me a sign of some kind. My most beloved professor told me once that I should listen when animals try to talk to me. She believed deeply in the spirituality of the world around us and said that we all once knew how to hear the natural world, but that we’d lost it. If I’m still, she said, I could maybe regain it. I try and twist my head without moving out of my pose to get at least a glimpse of the birds cavorting in the trees, at least a snapshot to see what they’re trying to tell me. I wriggle my neck from side to side, worsening the ache in my shoulder, but all I see is blue sky and the rock pocked edges of my apartment walls.
When I’m finally released from the yoga video, I spin up onto my knees and look out my window. Surely now, I will see these creatures who had captivated me so. I look at the leafless, bare trees and find that only a few members of the chorus remain, staring into the now clear fall day. Silent.
Hopefully one day I’ll witness their melody and understand. But, for today, I turn my back on them and idly sink deeply into the softness of my muffled bed.
(Prompt by me but encouraged by Emily Kleeman)
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