sandhill cranes

Something about those birds got to me. They were quiet and brown, and apparently lacking in worldly ambition. They didn’t move when it started raining. They stood there like it was their true vocation and calling to be standing on a pile of dirt getting wet for the whole afternoon. There was something going on inside those birds, but they weren’t going around shouting about it.

There are singers in Ireland who have one song they sing. Just the one. It doesn’t come out often and it doesn’t come out easily; you’ve got to be there at the right time, and the air in the room has to be just right and then you’ve got to be paying attention, because it only happens once and when it is over, it is like it never happened at all

That’s how it was with the cranes. I was looking out the window and they were brown birds in the rain, barely moving. Then one of them spread his great long wings, fanned the air a few times and leapt several feet off the ground. Just the once. It was a dance. It was the honest-to-God crane dance and I saw it from my window. It was just for a moment, and not really for me, but I saw it.

They’ve got a song, too, those cranes, and it’s really loud. After I heard it for the first time, I spent a week trying to make the same sound. I harbor certain small ambitions like that. I am plain and brown and quiet, but I do not keep my secrets as well as a crane. I will not hesitate to sing you my crane song, even if it embarrasses us both.

AHAAAAglAAACKAAAAAglAAACKGHAAA
ACKAAAAglAAAACKGHAHHAAAAAglAAACK
AAAAglAAACKGHAAAAglAAACKAAAAglAAA!

I can do the dance, too.