A miracle is only a miracle if you acknowledge it.  You must have eyes that see and ears that hear.  If you forget the sound of the wind because you become deaf, you may still feel it brush your shoulders, but part of its mystery is lost.  (When you observe something in its full mystery, you are enlightened. When something in its full mystery is observed, we are enlightened.

Jackson was a place where crows came to die.  Crows themselves are intelligent creatures, watching everything below as though it were a puzzle. Humans tended to view them as simple, which the crows knew too, and because this, the crows also knew that they themselves were the smarter species.

No human had ever figured out why crows died in Jackson.  They came from all over--as far as two counties away--to land on the Jackaranda trees in the middle of Ms. Staton's yard.  Hundreds of them a week.  Once landed, each would stay perched on its branches, never leaving until losing its grip with its final breath.

Ms. Staton was eighty-nine last year.  Her children grown, her husband dead.  She felt alone, but not lonely--she chose to follow a routine that kept her company with each hour.  At 6 a.m. she made toast and cut a grapefruit in half and wrapped the other half with plastic wrap, leaning her body against the kitchen counter for balance.  At 7 a.m. she watched the Today show and though she didn't understand all the things the anchors talked about, she liked their energy and their familiar smiles, like friends waving from across the room. At 11 a.m. she would slowly bend into the pink loveseat in front of the television and watch her soap operas, waking up somewhere between 2 and 3 p.m. to the sound o
Somewhere between 5 and 6 p.m. she'd water her plants and feed the two cats and heat up the second half of yesterday's TV dinner.  By 8p.m. the dishes were washed, she had sponge bathed herself with a warm, wet washcloth, and she was in her old silk nightgown headed to bed.