peace, break thee off

i imagine some may wonder why i am giving so much a fuss over birds

after all, i myself confess to having slain scores of them.

in truth, killing birds is never the problem.  hollow bones.  flammable wings.  a bird can be broken with such accidental ease.

there is a force.  a mind beyond our own.  a soul with many bodies, as many as it can claim.

that is my foe.  others call it what they will.  i first encountered it with crows.

thus, i call it the murder.

as many birds as are slain, as many of their vile devotees, filled with the foul fowl themselves i have burned and shot and run over with farm equipment

in the end, the murder lives on.  breaths on, because it is not a bird.  it is a will.  a force behind them.

perhaps it has a form.  perhaps there is a face to the murder.

i do not wish to know it.

there are times, i think, i have caught a glimpse of the true enemy.  you can see it when they make lightning.  a spark of the divine among the brute intelligence it has claimed.

'tis beautiful, to be honest.  and maddening.  much like the nature it commands, the merest glimpse  of it put spots on the vision of my mind's eye.

but that is a tale for another day.  one i have been putting off telling.

i am not the hero of my story, you see.  much like lear, i was deceived, and the true hero was cast away to her fate.

i merely live in her memory.  live for her memory.  she gave her life for mine unworthy existence.

'tis the least i can do to prolong it.