Crow Funeral

an excerpt

Driving fast. A big sky afternoon. The high sun is yellow and the tulips are yellow and the old truck is yellow. When Joni Mitchell chimes in from the dial radio, of course it’s “Big Yellow Taxi” and Jess and Arrow laugh and their laughter runs along the vineyard roads like fluttering goldfinches.

So many crows. Arrow sees them first, startling, telling Jess to slow down. The tree in front of the Jakes’s barn bowing low from the weight of them. They perch in clusters in the beech and hemlock trees that wind into the woods and stream down the way.

Jess pulls over, eyes wide, red mouth round. Some of the birds are hopping on the grass with jumpy movements in some kind of ceremonial dance. There are crows flying in, taking their place on branch or below or on the walls of an old stone well.

They watch for a few minutes, silent, solemn. Thinking, watching. Something elemental, primordial, about all those crows.