Tuesday, June 18, 2013

A ruckus of wings


I heard a ruckus outside my bedroom window in the last bit of twilight. It sounded like someone clumsily flapping the pages of an oversized newspaper. But who does that any more?

I went to the window and peered into the shadows of sycamore trees silhouetted against the final silver light. 

In the shadows below I saw little.

In the weighty limbs 30 feet up, the wide pages of a wild turkey’s wings spread themselves black against the colorless sky as the big bird wobbled to its roosting place for the night.

The flapping pages of another wild turkey’s wings warned of its arrival as it crash-landed through a thicket of leaves onto the same limb. 

Others arrived, until there were nearly 10 big birds awkwardly flapping their wings like pages of newspapers, giving clumsy applause to another safe arrival, out of reach from those yapping coyotes, and settling in briefly for the short night that beckons another summer.

Man, what a ruckus! 

Soon, they were quiet and the frogs and crickets started their evening chorus, beeping and croaking under the same trees along the creek, bass and soprano voices lulling the birds to sleep. 

In a short while, it will be the dogs of the night hurling insults and cries of longing at the swelling moon….

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