Twin Crows

Two crows were perching huddled close on a twig up the big tree swaying with the winds blowing from the west.

The whole canopy rose and fell with the climb and fall of each gust and you heard the heaving of the wind like the deep-breasted breath of a bodybuilder pumping weights.

Everything was strong and robust this forenoon, the sky a translucence of dissipating white clouds vast and spreading, only in the east in patches showing blue brilliance, the sun hiding and peeping out as though on purpose, softening and setting alight the street and the buildings and the swaying trees, breathing light and shadow.

The wind and the light were breathing to different rhythms and the twin crows perched huddled close, their beaks sunk against the fluff of their breasts and eyes half-closed in the sharing of warmth, dancing with the twig bobbing in the wind like a pair of ballet dancers oblivious of everything else but the sharing of each other’s warmth and the listening to of each other’s heartbeats, never losing a step, never losing the perch, as though this moment was the beginning and the end and this dance the only thing.

The wind and the light were singing to different beats, but the crows with their dance on the swaying twig turned them all into a fusion music that was joy and celebration.

A car honked. And a truck hurtled past along the street raising dust in clouds quickly blown off and away by a gust waiting to come to life just to blow away that trail of dust and, its assignment done, fullfilled, to die unceremoniously somewhere down the street, like a panther out from the shadows in quick twisting bounds finishing its prey and withdrawing into the thickets.

A bicycle fell from its stand on the sidewalk with a rattle and there was the sound of laughter; someone shouted an oath, three or four of them were laughing and a boy came out and hauled the bicycle back on to its stand.

The wind and the sun and the honk of the car and the hurtling sound of the truck and the laughter each had its own rhythm, but the two crows on the twig with their swinging dance on the heaving canopy close to the terrace where you stood turned all sounds into a fusion music that was joy and celebration.

That music was the depth of silence and that silence the totality of everything.