One soon learns that, as the crow flies, pride goeth before spilling the salt. It's hard to know why this transcends calculation; perhaps weird humor is good camouflage. It does seem reasonable.

Useable? There's the rub.

Consider the garden spider, which has no such considerations having woven a web it inherited. It is the all time catcher, proven by an unlucky fly. Sun glints off the fly's back, green as a scarab beetle. Since before the pyramids. It's feeble buzz is heard from a short distance. The hazy, lazy days of summer. A ballet that dangles in space-time.

On-point feet twitch just above The Sentinel.



The crow swoops low, ignoring both spider and fly, centering on a flattened mesa beyond. The best camouflage, indistinguishable from ordinary trees and grass, is down to shiny glass towers that insist upon their abstracts. Dreamers on the street remember a Solid Bronze Lighthouse in Steuben glass. They descend into the subway bound for Antiques Roadshow.

The Sentinel watches impassively, coding for a brief message that inspires Hal 9000.

Rice paddies and Hawaii's sugarloaf mountain are terraced by Frank Lloyd Wright, to be sold on Tokyo's lucky day. In its throes the terrace crows, flashing a SETI signal in flinty humor.

Summer time and sitting pretty, above the salt.

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