No Grackles, These

The sound of the cars on the boulevard receded into the distance. Somewhere not too far away, two people were playing tennis. Just beyond them, some children were laughing.

The ground was soft from the inches of rain that had fallen earlier in the day. A stillness had descended on the woods. The air was filled with the smell of pungent juniper. Somewhere in the branches overhead, a cardinal called.

I negotiated my steps carefully as I ran. The wet mud made the limestone rocks slippery, and I had fallen there once before on a dry day, so I had a healthy respect for the place, watching each foot as it planted.

Around a turn I heard the sound of a crackling grackle. It's a coughing/choking kind of sound (an appropriate call for a bird as obnoxious as it is), and it startled me.

As I lifted my head to look, something moved. Out from the undergrowth, two black-winged carrion birds bounded into the air. They seemed to block the light. Their wings spread many feet from tip to tip. And as they struggled to get airborne, wings flapping against the still air, the rushing of their feathers made a coughing/choking sound. They were no grackles, these.

Somewhere there in the thick of the woods, something had met its maker.

The cardinal held his song. I lowered my gaze to my feet again, and continued running the trail.

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Riata Park
Austin, TX

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