I counted fourteen huge black ravens, scattered under the deep shade of a mesquite tree, their beaks split open, tongues panting, gathered not to gossip but watch each other suffer the silence of July’s heat, a kind of karma for their cruelty in April

with his dog circling, the man began shaking a small bottlebrush tree while a roadrunner, its toes locked on an upper branch, held on with the violence as I approached, he looked at me with excited eyes, I want to see it run as I said, Oh, watched for a moment then continued not speaking up that morning years ago and quietly walking away still sits somewhere in the pit of my stomach a lump of indigestible silence

I love it when they stretch long long and lazy in the late afternoon I can almost hear my backyard sigh every lizard and leaf, hummingbird dragonfly and goldfish can punch out of their day job, relax a bit, and turn to more personal, yet necessary things to pick up on the way home while there’s still light I know my mood changes – a slight sadness that another day is ending yet a relief that my errands are done, and I can watch the evening swallow every last shadow and