Woke up late. Too tired to start things in a hurry, like Saturdays of long ago. Sitting here with coffee, black as hell and bitter. But it tastes good.

A grey fine day like someone’s antique silk dress fraying slightly at the edge. Warm, misty skies wet with coming rain or snow.

Dull and confused like teflon, a chemical taste in my mouth, the worry of the week like mold on everything. Why so dull now in happy December?

Suddenly they come again, the birds flying in and out of the bushes, they cris cross outside again doing a new dance. Like little black shadows but in and out they flit over and over again, so how can I be sad when they dance? I watch the almost grainy black and white movie nature directs here just for me. I can smell the outside, the damp, the moist earth opening up slightly now thinking perhaps it is spring.

The shrubs in front of the windows cover a good half of the light coming in. But I still see those birds and almost feel their little hearts bursting with joy as they fly, chatter, and sing.

Swoop! Sitting here I am transfixed again because there are so many birds flying in and out as though they are coming for me, to take me somewhere far away. Few people out. A great silence next door, the looming, monstrous house finally sold and waiting for the next family coming in.

I run to the window and the birds are circling my house near the roof, the gutters, in front of the dining and living room windows and they fly in and out of the large wide yew on the parkway. Looking closer I see that there are perhaps two dozen in that shrub, many underneath, picking at something in the grass.

There is a black car parked right in front of the shrubs and I see some woman sitting there texting. Bent over and tapping her finger over and over again sending messages to someone. The car is running and I realize that there are clouds of exhaust billowing from the back end.

I am annoyed at the woman, at her car, her exhaust, her texting. The birds are just a couple of feet away from her poison. Go away go away I mouth to her silently while looking out my window. I can almost smell the exhaust. I think about running out in my robe and shooing her away and then she taps a few more times and in a cloud of smoke leaves.

The birds peck happily away, chirping, eating, singing, caring not a thing for me or the black texter.

But, I am happy again. I wait because somewhere in my little demented mind I think to myself, the birds may come back, a whole mass of them, carrying something like a wide magic carpet, and one day, maybe, take me far away with them.