Friday, January 13, 2017

Cold Murder

I'm out of town working nights, but this past week Portland got something like a a foot of snow, the most we've gotten since 2008 and, of course, slamming the entire metro area into a cold hell of clogged streets and downed powerlines.

We don't do snow well in Oregon.

Earlier in the winter my wife and son came home excited that they'd seen an enormous flock of crows swirling over downtown. "Like a movie!" was the Boy's comment; I'm not sure which movie he meant. The corvid invasion has been a thing this winter. One of the local news channels had a story about some outfit that "rents" hawks to harass the crows, which appear to be something of a noisy, messy nuisance (because, "crows", right..?) in the central Park Blocks.

Sometimes, though...

Sometimes when you combine snow, and crows, and night you can produce an image of surpassing beauty.


"To hatch a crow, a black rainbow
Bent in emptiness
over emptiness
But flying."

~ Ted Hughes

And that's really all I had to say today.

5 comments:

Ael said...

Beautiful plumage!

P Harris said...

Thanks, Chief.

mike said...

P-Town Maine?

Labrys said...

I love crows and snow!

mike said...

A noble bird in the wild. They have no fear in attacking eagles and hawks.

They had the rep of being a pest on farms. But I think they have now found better feeding in urban settings.