Things were moving on. Except for Crow, the birds had left for other shores, other suns, other rivers. Even the fish were gone. Those lithe ribbons of light, as long as a child's pinkie in the fleeting springtime, had departed from their shallow birth-waters, toward the vast depths of the sea. Certain songs and glimmerings are known only in summer.

Meanwhile Crow had remained steadfast to the low grass, surveying his small plot under the ever-grey skies with his wings folded on his back.

Why was I still here, with Crow and the silences left behind by those other birds? What did I want, there in that awful silence, as even the trees transformed?




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