Twinkie is chasing a leaf. A moth would do as well. She would've noticed a Ferris wheel.
Like a kneeling camel, the wheel slows. I get off, and the neighborhood seems strange. No one else seems to notice. For predecessors disembarking at Wood Duck Court, getting out of cars, closing doors, nothing seems out of the ordinary. It's so unremarkable. Anyplace wheels go round a prayer might be spun, or popcorn popped. There will be melted butter. Or there might be an ice cream truck with kids following, or a merry-go-round. But it was an extraordinary event.
The crow nation and I have a history. Through many summers they had known my truck, keeping track. Ignoring the Ferris wheel, it was long time no see when a pair of them landed in the hackberry tree. So good to feel them settling in again amongst the green leaves, and the memories
Mowing makes the bugs jump, and happy hunting! My best crow had established perches along the route – a limb in a certain tree, a TV antenna – from which to drop, landing dangerously in front of the mower. Hopping aside at the last moment.
Not only are crows playful, they remember people and what we do.
At apartments I did just a couple of blocks from here, a baby crow had fallen out of its nest. It lay helpless next to the AT&T terminal box. I knew the residents. Cupping the chick in my hands, I took it to the nearest door. Luckily she was home, and would be glad, she said, to care for the bird.
Maybe a week later the Court darkened, as if a sudden thunder storm had arrived.. Crows! -- hundreds of them, and raising an incredible din! In a deluge of black feathers, the tribe took over lawns and trees, including the hackberry in our backyard.
That was then. And now emissaries arrive. Their loud crows are like an ambulance pushing through a crowded intersection, suddenly cut short. They go silent. It is a stark emphasis. And having delivered, they lift magnificent wings into the sky, as when the tribe had visited, leaving as they had come.
Technically a bumble bee is an insect. One was a friend who kept bumping into my cheek, coming along where I stopped my truck in the neighborhood. Of course I have mentioned before the doves, Mr. Finch, squirrel, and the hummingbird family.
And of course the robins, who had built their nest in our neighbor's oleander tree, out in the front lawn. Tree? After so many years of being cut to provide leeway for the mower it had attained treehood.
The robins were a couple, and visited our backyard together. The male would come in flying under the planter box, and on over to the bird feeder. His really fun thing, after perching on it, was to zoom back and attack my blue marble, which was the pinnacle of a sculpture consisting of the hood ornament from my truck, built up with old sprinkler parts on top. We both enjoyed the game. On a good day, the marble would end up under the planter box.
It was when I noticed their nest that we had became friends. They noticed, and came to sit on the power line that goes out to the street light. I talked to them, and soon they began coming along as I worked in the yard, and especially when I brought scraps to the compost. One terrible day the nest was raided by a Peregrine falcon who stole their chicks, diving in claws first, dashed them onto the street, and ate them.
In the aftermath, we gathered at the power line, facing each other, and I cried. We grieved together.
Recently the place next door has been remodeled. Hardwood floors, a new fence, and the “tree” got chopped down. Now just one robin shows up. He still chirps when I bring scraps to the compost.
Lately the one dove with whom conversations are possible still comes by. We have worked out a sort of semaphore, exchanging blinks. The other doves are seldom seen, fewer as the days go by. Even Mr. Finch is becoming seldom, sometimes I find his cookie crumbs untouched.
The pale sun sinks, trailing an orange hue, and it's the time when everyone typically gathers. Tonight, just a hummingbird hovers by my chair. I think he has shown up to say good night, before it gets too dark. He's not going to his feeder. He just bobs in front of my nose where, for sure, I can't miss him.
perhaps a water wheel
Big wheel keep on turnin'
Proud Mary keep on burnin'
Rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river
the eight spoke wheel of dharma
Wheel N Deals on El Camino Real
sideshow punks doing wheelies in Oakland
the Wheel of Fortune
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