Ornithology

Walking toward the library, I pass three children staring down at a dead crow and daring each other to poke it with a stick. I stop, too, because I know a little about crows - how, for instance, they are different from ravens. I could tell these well-dressed children that: ravens are black a with purple tint while crows are denied that royal hue. A crow's tale is squared-off like the crew-cut on the boy at Menchie's who hands them the expensive frozen yogurt while a raven's tale is triangular, a shape discovered by the Persians and beloved by the 17th century mathematician Blaise Pascal. Furthermore, ravens love solitude and prefer remote hills and woods while a crow will perch on a stop sign and brag about it endlessly. But that isn't what they are concerned about. They want to know about Death. And for that I would have to fetch the skull from my desktop and ask the sun to hide its face behind a dark, galleon-shaped cloud and then - Oh, wait. They're offering me the stick. All they really want to know is will I poke the corpse. Of course. And when I do and it moves, they run away shrieking and delighted. More alive, if possible, than before.