Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Les Oiseaux

The Ceder Waxwings swarmed the backyard this afternoon. At least a thousand of them. I stood and moved to the window to watch them feed and the radio went static and switched to French like it always does in the afternoon, when some sort of ghost plays games with the frequencies. I stood and watched the birds sweep through the trees like a swarm of God-sent locusts, picking them clean of last year's crop.
And then they were gone, an exodus of beating heat, flying through winter sky like a single body. They dropped and climbed away at will, at random, with the frequency of my radio on the backs of their wings.

3 comments:

Aaron Stewart said...

I love your writing style.

Janna Barber said...

Just responding to the comment you left me on Kim's blog. Yes, that was me, about the concordance.

I've enjoyed visiting your blog and reading your writing. Keep it up. Don't be intimidated by Master's people. Wish I had the time and $$ to do a class. Wish I had skipped the education major and stuck w/ English!

Do you mind telling what school you went to for a year?

Angela said...

thanks, aaron!

janna,
ha! it's a dreamy line. wish i wrote it.
i'm good with the master's people now. the ph.d guys are still a little freaky, but the fact that almost everyone ends their critiques with self-defacing comments or with, "Shoot. o.k. I'll stop talking now," makes me feel right at home.
i majored in ed. for my first degree, too! blech, i say.

it was the "Baptist Leadership Training School" in Calgary, Alberta. It's defunct now, for good reasons. it was a crazy-making school.