The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year

by Margaret Renkl

We were never cast out of Eden. We merely turned from it and shut our eyes. To return and be welcomed, cleansed and redeemed, we are only obliged to look.

According to birding tradition, the first bird you see on the first day of the new year sets the tone for your next twelve months.

I need to remember that the earth, fragile as it is, remains heartbreakingly beautiful.

The world will always be beautiful to those who look for beauty.

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.”

I can scroll and worry indoors, or I can step outside and remember how it feels to be part of something larger, something timeless, a world that reaches beyond me and includes me, too.