Post 4th of July Post

Sometime late last night it rained, cleansing the sky of the smoky remnants of fireworks festivities. I worry about the birds as the smoke and noise threaten the creation of an avian pandemic. The inordinate amount of smoke released by the holiday of aerial pyromania may attack the respiratory systems they use to achieve the miracle of flight. I lost a little feathered friend years ago and I suspect it was due to human created sooty air pollution in a campground setting. Perhaps the descent of a million crows on a Texas Walmart parking lot yesterday, was their way of huddling en masse for protection in an area with a sonic buffer. Perhaps their huddling was also an evolutionary strategy for thwarting predators, a way to 'extinguish extinction'. People don’t seem to be conscious of the association with war and destruction that fireworks have while enjoying the display of explosive bouquets in their neighborhood skies. These special effects, while dazzlingly beautiful, also have side effects.

Perhaps this rain which seemed to fall silently, was released when I was shaken from dreaming about the human pandemic by three successions of thunder rolls. They were nothing like I’d ever heard. They were not in the upper reaches of the sky, but hovering close to the ground as if they might take out blocks of houses while unleashing. I was in one sense, comforted by the beauty and power of nature to both clear the air and assert its authority over human made racket. I was also grateful that the deep, resonating and ricocheting sounds hovering the streets were not tanks rolling or cluster bombs dropping. I was grateful to hear some of the birds still singing this morning. We should make sure while fighting a pandemic that we cease being a pandemic on the planet ourselves. We should listen to nature sometime, 'extinguish the extinction', and LIVE ON.