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Why Are The Crows Again On The Crow Tree?

Four houses down the hill, on my side of the street, a HUGE tree grows in a backyard. For many years it was a resting rook for flocks of crows on their daily migration.


The crows would leave the other side of the harbour around dusk. They would fly to their evening rookery on a university campus on this side of the harbour. I’d guess 5 miles (8.04672 kilometers) – as the crow flies. They would return between seven and nine the next morning, making another stop in The Crow Tree.
I estimate there were around two hundred crows, taking their ease for twenty minutes or so. There was some flying and fluttering around The Crow Tree, but generally they settled and stayed on the branches.

Other birds steered clear.

Then, about three years ago the university, which was the crows’ destination, decided to construct some additional buildings. This meant the removal of trees. Lack of trees meant that the crows would have to go elsewhere. So much for higher learning.

And, indeed, over the months, the crows visiting The Crow Tree diminished, and eventually stopped. I researched the situation and found out that “my” crows were just one cohort of a murder that could reach two thousand. And I found out that not all the crows stopped using the university for their evening roost. There were obviously enough trees for some of them.

But “my” crows stopped.

That is, until two weeks ago.

One morning, around 70 – 100 crows settled into The Crow Tree. It was a great surprise. They stayed an hour or so. With such few numbers, they were neither raucous nor flighty.  They murmured among themselves, but I could not decipher what they were talking about. And then they went on their way. They did not make a return evening flight, and I have not seen them since.

Was it some sort of reunion?


DE

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Kafka Decides To Keep His Day Job

Franz Kafka (although a trained lawyer) had plans other than his job at The Workers’ Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia in Prague. He eventually found it was a good place to be.

Kafka was press-ganged to be a ‘silent partner’ and part-time manager for his brother-in-law’s asbestos factory, Prager Asbestwerke Hermann & Co. In his diary of 28 December 1911, he complains of ‘the torment that the factory causes me’. He also commented to his friend, Max Brod, that “. . . after writing well Sunday night [. . .] I had to stop for the following reason: my brother-in-law, the manufacturer, this morning left for a business trip.”

Needless to say, Kafka’s enthusiasm was not pure. The Factory did not survive.

Also, Kafka had the idea of moving to Berlin and opening a Café. He was to be owner, chef, and waiter. This idea sustained him a number of years, but happily (for everyone) it never came to fruition.

But, as this following story from The Goethe Institute reveals, Kafka has some plans to actually make money from his talent as a writer.

Making money as an author :

“Together with his mate Max Brod, Kafka wanted to publish a commercial bestseller series. Kafka wrote: “We had the idea of creating a new type of travel guide. It was to be called BILLIG or ON THE CHEAP. For example, On the Cheap through Switzerland, On the Cheap in Paris and so on.” It would only ever recommend one thing – the cheapest hotel, the cheapest restaurant, the cheapest means of transport. Linked to this was the idea of the On the Cheap language guide, which, given the impossibility of learning a foreign language completely, teaches the wrong thing straight away. In the end, the idea remained just a dream. Talks with publishers failed, and so Kafka did not become a millionaire. https://www.goethe.de/ins/pk/en/kul/mgz/ros/25439440.html “

DE

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Sister Darling Puts Paw, The Cat/Kitten, In His Place

I am submitting

To the blandishments

Of Sister Darling, of

The Rarefied Church of the World (reformed),

Because she is a woman of God.

(Though her take on the teachings of the Lord,

Do have a belligerent slant).

And,

She can play me like a fiddle.

So, at her suggestion,

I let her make, for Paw, my Cat/kitten,

Black as the night

With one white mitten,

A winter suit,

For days like today,

With wild winds cold

As an iceberg,

And snow enough to

Bury any cat.

She has knitted him a body suit,

And four booties,

Coloured blue, so we

Won’t lose him in the snow.

Paw is none too happy

Being press-ganged into this gear.

Nor does the chore,

Fill me with cheer.

But out she tosses him

Into a drift.

Two other days he protests,

But this morning, he is calm as a clam,

And stays out for hours.

I’m The Lighthouse Poet Laureate of Partridge Island /1821 – 2024 / A lot of stuff have I seen / A lot of stuff to report}

DE BA. UEL

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The Winter’s Tale On An Island

I’ve been reading
“The Winter’s Tale”
To Paw, my cat / kitten,
Black as a bear
With one white mitten.
I confess I emote with
Gusto,
Which he likes.
And I growl at the part
[Pursued by a bear]
Which he really likes.
And sometimes I,

(I confess),
G R O W L

Which makes Paw
Spit and bristle
And back up.

He even
– Sometimes –
Looks around the room.

Which makes me call his name,
Which calms him down.

I’m The Lighthouse Poet Laureate of Partridge Island /1821 – 2024 / A lot of stuff have I seen / A lot of stuff to report}

DE BA. UEL

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The Shipping News – Sunset On The Red Sea

There is an odd
Configuration of ships
This evening

At the mouth of the harbour.
I grabbed my telescope,
And headed out to see.
Paw, my cat/kitten,
Black as the distance,
With one white mitten
Demanded to come along.
So – why not?
He knows what the telescope means,

And headed for the furthest outpoint,
Of Partridge Island.

Then, when we reached it,
He scrambled up my clothes,
And perched on my shoulder.
I assume we see the same thing.
For he started to spit

And not purr.
Three ships,
Side-by-side-by-side,
Exchanging goods of
(Perhaps)
A dubious nature.

I’m The Lighthouse Poet Laureate of Partridge Island /1821 – 2024 / A lot of stuff have I seen / A lot of stuff to report}

DE BA. UEL

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Winter Storm Races Over Land And Sea

Colossal big storm!
Hell-of-a storm!
Knock-ya-ass-

Over-tea-kettle storm!

HUGH Kraken storm

Is on its way.
Paw,
My cat/kitten
Black as a thunder cloud
With one white mitten
Has let me know
In no uncertain terms.
By acting in his unusual ways.
He is never wrong.
So,
I take heed of his meows,
His clawing at the bed covers,
His wild dash to the ocean
To stare,
And pace,
And growl.
I batten the hatches
Tie the rope from the Lighthouse
To my Keeper’s house.
Get bedding in case I have
To sleep on the cot.
And ready Paw’s carry case.
And say prayers.
We both say our prayers.

I’m The Lighthouse Poet Laureate of Partridge Island /1821 – 2024 / A lot of stuff have I seen / A lot of stuff to report}

DE BA. UEL

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The New Year Prods Kafka To Think Of His Youth

03 January 1917

I still have fantasies about the Swiss girl – although not the type one might suppose.

(My father says I already have too many fantasies, and that I deal with them “too long, and too often” – he is certainly right.)

I make a mixture of what I shared with the Swiss girl, and what I imagine we would be like today. This is certainly more fantasy than not, for what would being together have done to us? Done to her?

But, in this tiny house – could she not join me?

Be here by the window, as I write this?

But she was so young, and such a girl, where I fear that I was never such a boy.

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Ghost Ships Pass By In The New Year

I’ve been reading my Shakespeare (As I often do)

Aloud, to Paw, my cat/kitten

Black as the grave,

With one white mitten.

He usually sleeps.

But he would agree with Horatio, that:

“There needs no ghost, my Lord/

“Come from the grave, to tell us this.”

And Paw, as is Horatio, would be right.

But still, the wrecks of ships,

Gone down to their watery depths

In the preceding year,

Float in a line

Stern to bow

Across the mouth of the harbour.

I go out, and always watch

In the dark dark dark of the night,

As one year of wretched release

Slides into another.

What can I do for them,

Other than to acknowledge

Their passage.

I’m The Lighthouse Poet Laureate of Partridge Island /1821 – 2023 / A lot of stuff have I seen / A lot of stuff to report}

DE BA. UEL

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A House Of Ghosts

   It had been a house of dreams, it was now a house of ghosts.

   Ghosts tranquil and benign peered through the dusty upper windows, stood in wait behind the boarded doors. The dreams of long ago, which had tumbled down the stairs, and frolicked through the rooms, were now memories in the minds of ghosts.     

   The ghosts were themselves memories, destined to further fade with each new birth. But there would be no births in this house, as it slid inexorably toward decay. The lackluster brown shingles would be more smudged, the remaining panes of old glass would break, the floors would warp and collapse, the  roof would succumb to the years of harsh weather. 

     Even the `No Trespass’ sign was barely legible. Then where would the ghosts go?

     Blaine left his car and walked toward the house. 

     If he had eyes to see, who would be there to greet him?  Would children’s dreams, fair-haired and boisterous, burst through the front door and surround him in games of tag and laughter?  Would he get caught by their enthusiasm (would he become a child himself), and race behind the trees, burrow into the hay, hide between the bins of potato and turnip, intent not to be `it’. 

     Or would he meet the ghosts, quiet and tentative at the top of the steps, moving slowly with their uncertain smiles. Would they greet him with a wave, invite him into their warm-smelling kitchens, offer him fresh tea, and squares right out of the pan?  Would he sit in the stream of fall sunlight flowing across the well-oiled floor, and talk about childhood?

     Blaine walked part way up the drive before he stopped.

     He knew what lay beyond the boarded windows, and the sagging door upon its rusty hinges. Wallpaper would be water-stained, and curling off the plaster walls. There would be lumps of refuse in the corners of the rooms, with one inevitable rusty bed frame lying on its side. There would be gaps in the ceiling, where beams of sunlight shimmered through motes of dust. There would be holes in the baseboards, where earnest rodents made comfortable homes.

     There would be musty smells offering a hint of long-ago meals, and something gone bad in the pantry. There would be one upper window (at the back) which still had a tattered lace  curtain, half obscuring what had once been totally private. At night he would hear bats.

     It was not this house he had come to see, of course. Of course, not this derelict house, which he knew could never be restored, and which was so beyond help even death slept while visiting.

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