Or maybe I just like the morning still. The earth be-dewed and hovering in that pause between breaths.
Out into that I go, steaming cup o joe in hand. Something called "Organic Love Buzz," and even though that reeks of hammy marketing (covering for a blend of whatever leftovers are lying around the roastery), it's really good. A couple of gulps and I can feel the warmth start to convect through my body.
What birds are singing, I don't know. The songs are familiar, though, and they are that first exhale of a new day. Maybe one reason I get up this early is to hear these songs, savoring the narrowing range my aging ears are hearing these days.
The crows must've been hitting the espresso, because they swoop in whooping it up, calling a meeting way up in the wild cherry tree. Jays and a bevy of little brown birds show up immediately, and fall in with the crows' scolding, all of the feathered ones bent on harrassing something, maybe a cat, something threatening in the parabolic darkness of an evergreen. Veins now caffeinated, I nearly join in, but we have new neighbors and I'm not quite ready to come out as a crazy.
The little ones yip while the jays squawk and the crows settle into a rash duet. "Kah! - Kaw!" Bird bodies bobbing, heads jabbing. Thashing the unseen interloper with an aural assault. (If I were more literate, I could allude to some coked-out jazz experiment gone bad, but I aint.)
The little ones skip out and jays like to spread squawk all over their territory, so before long it's down to the crows. Maybe still hassling some intruder, but to my ears slipping into a nice groove. Calls and responses in cadences alluring (alluding to jazz riffs I cannot name, but have heard as sure as the birdsongs). The beat fluid, emphatic quickening and then slackened coasting. Backbeat leapfrogging up front now and then.
The stillness is gone, but not shattered. Birdsong primed the pump and the crows hit the throttle. Night's ebb done, day's flow begun.
So yeah. That's good coffee.
