It may be down to the fact that I’m listening to – no: immersed in – Counting Crows a lot, at the moment (a very extended moment that has been absorbing me for many, many days): but there seems to be a preternaturally large number of black birds flecking, piercing, spiralling, twisting and weaving the air, at the moment. (That phrase again.)
Our quotidian pairs of jackdaws; irregular small specklings of small, speckled starlings; occasional outranking rooks; random magpies (counting crows!); the silhouettes of kites, buzzards, and other raptors (common here; but still occasional enough to astonish…) – the lack of comforting colonies of house sparrows… – rendered more meaningful (perhaps) by the even more “occasional” sparrowhawk… – the sudden shocking contrasting scarlet-red of Mr Robin… – all carrying several shapes of doom with them (in my mind, anyway).
But if they are intended as premonitions… – well, then, they are way, way, way too late. People’s lives are already fucked way beyond the usual – whatever passes for ‘natural’… – low levels of crapness they experience. 2020 has not been a good year to remember: which is why it will be all the more memorable… – although I pray (atheistically, of course) that these dark, dank birds will depart with their wings bearing as much of its vileness as they can manage; that colour will return: uniformly. As may life. As may – not normalcy – but something yet better.
Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun;
Not separated with the racking clouds,
But sever’d in a pale clear-shining sky.
See, see! they join, embrace, and seem to kiss,
As if they vow’d some league inviolable:
Now are they but one lamp, one light, one sun.
In this the heaven figures some event.
– William Shakespeare: Henry VI, part 3 (II.i.26-32)
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