I received some omens last week, two omens back to back. I waited for a third to complete the set, then I got my third and thought it was over.
Then I got my fourth…
These were bird omens, by the way, just about the most powerful kind.
Omens one and two happened on the morning of the day I drove to my buddy’s house for a time of stories, a time of big talking and writing.
He’s an old friend and one of the few people I’m able to “dream talk” with. Dream talking is when you limit yourself to talking about things worth talking about:
ghosts
monsters
evil
art
beauty
story
poetry
magic
the meaning of life and
personal greatness
I was sitting at home that morning, being personally great by reading Emily Dickinson, even though I didn’t have to, reading this:
“Fame is a fickle food
Upon a shifting plate
Whose table once a
Guest but not
The second time is set
Whose crumbs the crows inspect…”
And I swear to E.D. that the moment I read “the crows inspect,” crows started screaming outside.
I screamed, then I sighed and smiled, which is how to answer the call of the crow.
I did all this because I love crow song.
I love it like I love manure.
What I mean is, I love it when it’s far away.
Poop, specifically poop at a distance, and it really has to be cow poop, is nostalgia perfume for me. In the same way, crow music is beautiful and haunting, but only when it’s so far away it’s almost lost. Stick Mr. Crow up a cow’s anus then pull him out and stand him screaming on my windowsill? I hate that.
My gang of crows on that morning, however, my Dickinson murder, they were far enough away and therefore lovely.
A good omen.
By the way, writers will hemorrhage if they don’t let you know that crow gangs are called a “murder.” You’ll be at a party, discussing your local crow gatherings, and the room’s writer will pipe up and say, “Attention, please. Silence, everyone. A pack of crows is called a murder.” This makes the writer feel their value with both hands.
They can also achieve this high by using the words “azure” and “calico,” and by forcing breezes to stir up vegetation on their poetry and story pages, which requires the writer to call this effing greeny movement “dancing.” All the skies of the writer are azure. All cats are calicos. All trees, weeds, leaves, and flowers (and snow, and stupid hairdos) are dancing — they’re so fucking tired of dancing. And all the assembled crows are up to no good.
Not my crows, friend.
Yes, most crows do mean the big 3 — death, murder, and disease — but they can also mean, “Brace yourself with both hands.”
“For what?”
“For some good old-fashioned good luck.”
That’s what my crows were saying that morning. So, I got ready. I’ve been ready. And when I die, I’ll die ready.
The second omen occurred when I was walking carward to drive to the house of the dream-talking buddy.
I passed the storm drain grate, and a bird flew out of it. It was a Chipping Sparrow. My wife and I call these darlings “mud birds” because they look like mud birds.
As far as omens go, Chipping Sparrows mean absolutely nothing, which isn’t true.
The Chipping Sparrow symbolizes happiness, resilience, and community. In other words, he gives you the resilience necessary for tolerating the community, sometimes in the form of keeping far away from it. That means distance, and distance leads to happiness, because all Chipping Sparrows know that community is kissing cousins to cow shit and crow song.
However, since hanging out with my buddy isn’t something to tolerate, but to enjoy, I didn’t need anything from the sparrow. Still, it was nice to have his blessing.
I told my buddy about the omens. He approved. Naturally, we talked about birds for a while, omens in general, and then it was time to write.
I set up my writerly beachhead at his dining room table with a view of the backyard.
I wrote even though I’d only received two omens out of three. They always come in threes. I wrote, but I also waited.
Then it happened.
They happened.
Two turkeys.
These top-heavy feathered pigs pushed out of the woods, moped along in single file across the lawn, then shoved back into the woods on the other side.
Though turkeys are beautiful in the same way babies are beautiful when fresh out of the womb, all raw, slick, quivering, and shedding steam; and though turkeys are riddled with the worst kind of ticks, the drowsy tryptophan drunks; turkeys are birds, and this made them my third omen.
What do turkeys mean, omen-wise?
This:
abundance
gratitude and
a connection to nature
Pilgrim shit.
Which at a distance of 400 years, smells like some pristine history.
Attention, please. Silence, everyone. The Wampanoag word for Pilgrim is “buckle perv.”
All this to say, I was ready to write.
Write, I did.
And it was very good.
Now, I’m in Maine visiting family. Now, I’m in possession of my fourth omen…
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