Benevolent Dictator of the Backyard Invites Truce with Local Gang

The former owners hung a widowmaker ceiling fan over my backyard deck

The chickadees ride the blades, a windblown merry-go-round

With a sweating glass of iced tea, I salute their belligerent chirps

Lemon slices clink tiny toasts of their own with the ice

The red geraniums and I dine on sunshine, al fresco

Spectate the squirrels at their parkour in the trees

I am in the midst of a standoff with the local gang of crows

I read of clever corvids crafting sleds from bottle caps, fishing with twine

Bringing whimsical GIFTS to human friends

My crows peck sizable gouges out of my strawberries

To scare off larcenous birds Google suggests

hang shiny tinsel and spinners

I’m pretty sure this would equate to a crow disco

Promptly double, nay triple, their numbers

The mystery flower from the nursery sale table has finally blossomed

A delicate five-point star, veined parchment cupping a snowflake of saffron pistils

What a good buy

I am washing dishes in the kitchen when I see out the window

A pentagon of crows, heads bowed to three white flowers still blinking at their first rays of daylight

Odd…

One of the crows bows deeply

And EATS a blossom

I sprint for the sliding door

Yank the glass open, shrieking

A neighbor is staring at me open-mouthed but my momentum will not be stopped

The crows look back at me, leisurely

Pause to skewer another bloom before they take to the air

A mother of pearl blossom flutters trophy from an obsidian beak

I wave half-heartedly to the neighbor. “Oh…hi, Dave.”

My kids have morning strawberry patrol

Determined. Diminutive guards marching the rows of the garden

To pluck sweet scarlet hearts before the crows can spear them

The insouciant corvids lounge on the neighbor’s fence, chuckling

Snacking on freshly sown seeds in Dave’s garden bed

Calling over dry encouragement to my children

hey you missed one

This morning as the sun spilled summer vintage rosé across the sky

I ran in loops past the neighbor’s great Cottonwood

Branches bedecked in crows cackling catcalls and affronted chickadees

Obviously, the birds are quite supportive of my health journey

I’m sure in another hundred years

The crows may even bring me a gift.