Crash

All season long the birds have seemed exuberantly confused. The first smack of sun barely tears away at night, and they're out there racketeering, calling to each other from the limbs of the dogwood and maple, the gutter underneath the eave. The conversation is immeasurable and therefore private, but it's the early-morning flight that's got me worried for their sake—the way the birds crash into my windows, fall to the ground and stagger about like drunks until they regain their wits.

Sometimes it's the newly hatched chicks. Sometimes it's an old blackbird with a slight bald spot; the beast should know better, should have some shame. And then there's the male cardinal, that flash of arrogant, impossible red, discernible even in the low dawn light.

I have friends who sleep like I do, which is hardly at all. They write of standing at their windows, too—worrying bird flight and song.