...When you look in the eyes of one
you have seen them all.
At the edges of highways
they pick at limp things.
They are anything but refined
Crow is Crow, you say.
What else is there to say?...
...wherever you arrive
they'll be there first,
glossy and rowdy
and indistinguishable.
The deep muscle of the world.
When I first began showing my spouse how to identify birds he caught me one day saying, "It's just a crow." I realized my speciesist attitude and how far I had wandered from seeing wonder in the ways life brings beauty to living form. Since then I take extra time to look at crows, and at their behavior. Perhaps they do pick at limp things, but my gosh, one day I saw one at my congregation doing it with a stick being used as a tool! Last year I read about a study of crows on a university campus where they found that crows recognize individual faces and can communicate to other crows if the person is a threat of which to beware. There is so much going on that reflects the deep foundations of this world - in suburban lawn, in city starling, in rowdy crows, and in our daily risings full of misgivings and doubts about what this day might mean to us, to those we love, and to the world. No matter our thinking, we are the work of this creation, enclosed in the same muscle sheath as the persistent crows.
Where do you overlook beauty, wonder, or unifying complexity in your daily life?
