A Cathedral of Grackles

A male grackle when courting often calls out to his intended with a voice mimicking the rhythms of a farmhouse screen door in disrepair—a scratchy, crackly, static murmur impossible to replicate with the human throat. Yet, imagine this as the voice of angels, a cathedral of them gesturing, casting out proclamations, or one casually at rest on the shoulders of some saintly scribe, dictating verses of God, harsh bird language to carry the Divine’s wishes—

•22/ this morning, two feral cats argue over bones of a heron by the side of the canal •