November 20: Crows

Yesterday I drove to Vermont, a state where I lived for five years (including four in college) and visit at least once a year to see my best friend and her husband in Montpelier. Vermont is a beautiful place, and if it only had an ocean, I might still be living there. (Lake Champlain, while once an inland sea, doesn't quite match up to Penobscot Bay.) So whenever I drive to Vermont and start seeing the familiar exits off I-89 and the profile of the Green Mountains rising to the west, I feel like I'm entering my second home.

Just at dusk as I was about to cross the bridge over the Connecticut River, which divides New Hampshire from Vermont, a massive flock of crows flew over, heading for their roost somewhere north of Lebanon. We don't often see such large numbers of crows--usually just one or two in the yard, or a small group mobbing a red-tailed hawk (which I also saw yesterday at Maine Audubon's Gilsland Farm). But even the family group I watch every day in my neighborhood belongs to some larger society of its kind. Also, unexpectedly large numbers of anything elicit awe (unless it's something like, say, fire ants or maggots, in which case that awe might be tinged with horror or disgust).

Dusk settles, crows flock,
a loose swarm headed for roost.
I too drive homeward.

Shortly thereafter, as it grew darker, I watched the young moon rise, and Jupiter hung clear and bright over the backbone of the Green Mountains.