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The crows flap their feathers to the rhythm of the drum, to the wind in November dropping seeds on the ground.
The wings in the sky are beating to a rhythm, to a beat, to the music of a God who breathes.
I can hear Him now, as I watch the black beasts count the measure of the Winter, hold the tempo of the weather, and the leaves clap their hands and fall down, all together now.
I think I can hear Him as I drive through the country, past the cotton left unpicked because the rain came too soon, past the tractors spinning dust and the trees dropping almonds. Past the grapevines flaming red and the cat who is dead, bloated on the side.
He is here, in the potholed world we suffer through. We dance and we cry and we all fall down, and I think there is truth in the darkest places, in the darkest spaces. The black crows testify with stretched out wings on the telephone pole. The ground is brown, the dirt is bare, but I look up and I see the birds are dancing to the beat.
I listened real hard. I felt the whisper, the Spirit, the breath of a God who doesn't have fences. I hold my breath in the face of the grace that holds hands with the broken, who counts the measure of our pain with ravens and promises us deliverance, singing songs in November.
"Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains." - James 5:7
