Category Archives: The Liminal Times

Supporting My Neighborhood Murder


Weligama I have an amazing backyard. It’s not landscaped, exactly.

It’s lived in. Alive. Birds flit through the air like punctuation marks. A hooting owl resides in the next door pine tree. Once, a chicken— a chicken—hopped over the back fence like a neighbor who’d had enough of her own yard.

Another time, I heard coyotes. Not in the distance. Close enough to lock in the dogs. It’s that kind of place. Not wild, not tame—somewhere in between.

But what’s taken hold of me lately are the crows.

They’ve lived here longer than I have. I know that much. You can hear them early in the morning, like they’re opening up shop.

They don’t sing like songbirds. They debate. They discuss. And then they squawk orders. I’ve always liked their rough-edged cleverness, their unapologetic presence.

And I’ve read the studies—how crows can recognize human faces, how they remember kindness, and cruelty. That stuck with me. It meant you could have a relationship with them, if you respected their intelligence. If you listened.

So I bought peanuts. Ones in the shell, the kind they have to work at. I wanted to give them something worth their time.

At first, I wasn’t sure they noticed. I’d leave them out in the morning, under the patio overhang, and go back inside. Nothing.

Then one day, I heard it—the clatter of claws on the tin roof above the patio. Metal on metal. Curious tapping. Then silence. Then the crunch of a shell being cracked.

The crows had come.

I didn’t see them at first. But I could hear them. Not just eating, but talking about it. One would land, grab a peanut, lift off. Another would follow.

They knew. They knew the source. And they’d taken the first step. Or maybe I had.

Today, when I stepped outside, one lingered on the roof. Watched me. Head tilted slightly. Measuring. Not alarmed. Just watching. Maybe wondering what I’d leave next.

It’s early, I know. But it feels like the beginning of something. Not a training. Not a taming. Something better. A friendship, if they’ll have it.

And if they will, I’ll be here. Same time, same place.

With peanuts.

Summer Shroud

loosest Summer Shroud

Some call this season June—
though the name feels too bright
for such slate-skinned hours.

The trees stand still,
their leaves unsure
whether to shimmer or rest.

Birdsong comes thin,
as if the sky has pressed
its gray hand
over the mouths of things.

Light moves slowly,
pooling in odd corners,
unwilling to rise.

And beneath it—
on the grass, along the worn paths—
a quiet gloom settles in,
soft as lichen,
sure as the tide.

No complaint,
no cause—
only a way of being,
for now.

And when it lifts—
as all things do—
even the sparrows will seem
surprised by the sun.

Zero Hour, 9 a.m.

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar”, every “supreme leader”, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”⁠
⁠
— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994⁠