I had to mail an important letter today so I drove down to the regional postal facility so it would get
Sunday delivery. On the way down I stopped for a light at the corner of State Road 7 and Oakland
Park Boulevard, one of the busiest and most urbanized intersections in the very center of town, two eight lane highways crossing at right angles with strip malls and shopping centers at each corner. There are very few trees about but the sky is crossed with power and telephone lines, apparently this is a key node in the electric and communications grids. Traffic was backed up in all eight directions, all lanes filled, your basic urban nightmare.

Stopped at the light, I Iooked about and saw the birds. They were everywhere, the trees and
decorative shrubbery were full of them, the utility poles were occupied and they spaced themselves evenly along the lines, precisely, almost touching but not quite. The sky (it was about sunset) was full of them as well, countless thousands of them, flying in dense coordinated clouds like swarms of angry bees. There simply wasn't enough room for all of them to perch and they were everywhere. The parking lots were full of them and even the medians had their share. The cables supporting the traffic signals were full, endless legions of them, all assembling for some mysterious errand all their own. The noise was deafening, their individual shrieks and squawks merging into an endless mechanical sound, like the simultaneous constant cry of every lost soul in hell.

I've seen this gathering before, about this time of year. Perhaps they are gathering for their migration, or maybe they've just arrived from down south. I don't know, I'm not even sure if this a migratory species. All I do know is that I see them here for a few weeks about this time of year, always at this intersection, as if there were something about this place that drew them, some unseen force or ancestral memory. I know the birds, they are grackles, they are common here year round and they are present in great numbers. They seem to be increasing, driving out other species, no doubt one of those few creatures which can survive alongside Man, exploiting the mess he's made of the planet and slowly taking the place of those creatures who cannot.

The individual birds are handsome creatures: robin-sized, the males are a shiny, glossy black, almost blue. The only color is from their eyes; I've seen them close-up and their eyes are bright yellow, with a tiny black pupil. Their stare is soulless, reptilian, I cannot avoid the feeling that they are evil creatures although I know better. The females are slightly smaller and colored a dark brown, but in the dim light at a distance they are hard to tell apart. They are like vermin and even during the off season they are everywhere. You can see them in parks, yards, on city streets, like pigeons or sparrows they feed off the crumbs we leave behind. They follow the lawn mowers that trim the grass by the Interstates, they are ubiquitous.

I don't know why they gather at SR7 and Oakland this time of year, there is nowhere for them to
roost nearby, no reason I can think of for this assembly. But it obviously means something to them. There is a sense of urgency about them, a drive, a primal force that has driven them and their kind for countless millions of years. Sitting there in the fumes in my car I see this spectacle, invisible to my fellow motorists and I alone seem to know that it is very important. What I see here is vital and we are for the most part oblivious to it. We ignore it at our peril. There are flows and currents in the natural world, events are unfolding we cannot even imagine and at scales we cannot perceive or understand. This meeting of birds is only the visible tip of a vast process which is proceeding with or without us. I am filled with dread, but not for some Hitchcockian horror of nature gone mad, the grackles are not threatening in themselves. They are just the obvious sign of some great hidden force that lies beneath, just beyond our grasp, a force before which we are as helpless as the birds whirling all about me.

The cars stopped with me at the light, the others on the cross-street creeping ahead on their own mindless errands, we are no different from the birds. Our meeting here at this city intersection is a chance encounter for every one of us, but it too is part of some unfathomable process, no more clear or obvious than what has brought the grackles here. There is a randomness and inevitability about all this that fills me with despair. My own personal universe is an endless search for meaning and purpose, but I see none outside myself. I sense that there is a flow and pattern, but it is mindless and chaotic and it does not know me.

The light changes green and without realizing it, I automatically place my car in gear and drive through the intersection.