The Resilient Crow
In the deeps of a forest, a heavy chestnut tree fell. It crushed smaller trees beneath it. It broke the boughs of neighbors. In the years that followed, light flooded through the rift the tree had caused in the forest canopy. Grasses, bushes, and brambles grew inside.
During the first spring of the rift, a crow flew over and saw blackberry vines in the clearing below.
"Wonderful," he said as he landed on the half-broken branch of a juniper. The crow hopped down the branch, found a vine, located the ripest blackberry, and ate it.
"Out!" screamed another bird. "Get out!"
The crow glanced overhead and saw the shadow of a raven. Beyond the raven, he saw an eagle, which was eyeing them both. The war over the blackberry grove had begun.
At the edges of the clearing, edible thistles grew around the thicket. Then came grassy burrs. In the center of the blackberries grew a few raspberry vines. At the top of the raspberries, two juniper trees, damaged by the fall of the mighty chestnut, seized their moment in the sunlight. They burst into bloom. They offered up bitter fruits to last for a year. Taken together, the collection of edible vegetation made the clearing a prize for every animal in the vicinity. Despite the thorns of the vines, despite the burrs in the grasses, despite the prickers and needles of the junipers and other bushes, every creature who could venture into the thicket did so in the spring.
The crow had to flee from the larger birds. It had to dodge the foxes. Coyotes and large cats came to prowl after the rabbits and mice. The crow evaded them, too.
Soon, the vines and grasses grew taller and thicker. The eagles didn’t want the berries, not at the price of so many thorns. The coyotes couldn't stand the prickers and burrs. The cats removed the rabbits from the area and, when they were done, removed themselves. Ravens flocked in as they migrated. They picked the bushes clean of ripe fruit, threw the unripe pieces to the ground, and moved on. In the process, they drove away the bluejays, squirrels, and the crows, all of them except for one.
The stubborn crow remained, hiding, but eating when it could. It dodged the foxes who returned to dine on mice.
"Why are you still here?" asked one fox, a vixen covered in burrs she had picked up during her approach. She had eaten a fat mouse but only one. She had found no more.
"The others of my flock moved to places with more food," said the crow. "But I am satisfied here."
"There's not much left." The fox laughed, her tongue out. She tried to avoid the burrs in the grass as she picked her way out of the thicket.
The crow lasted through the fall. Now, even the foxes had given up. The seasonal berries rotted. Some of them soaked the ground in seeds. Vines withered and turned into stiff canes, upon which the next generation of vines started to crawl. One day, the crow realized he had been the only hunter in the brambles for months. The place had become his home. He could reach juniper berries no one else could see. He ate rotted stuff no one else bothered about. He consumed beetles from the shattered bark of the fallen trees.
Two years later, the crow lived in a grand home next to the berry grove, a sheltered spot that could host an entire flock. And it did. The crow's children and grandchildren ventured in migrations across the forest. But he stayed. Often, his descendants flocked to his home. Beneath him, the mice returned. An occasional fox dropped by to eat the mice. He found them all easy to dodge.
One spring, a bird not much past its fledgling height crawled onto his branch and accosted him.
"Oh, wise one," she said. Her feathers were dark, healthy, and glossy.
"Hah!" the crow cried. "Shows what you know."
"Grandmother says you are wise." She cocked her head to one side as she shifted her gaze. "Our flock met another flock, crows like us. She said to ask you about them."
"Ugh, crows," he said.
"In the other flock," she persisted, "they were hungry. They seemed lost and angry. They wanted to fight but when we rose to meet them, they flew away."
"Sounds like the usual." He puffed his feathers. They were not as glossy as in his youth but they still served.
"Oh, wise one," she began.
"Ugh."
"How did you have so much success, grandfather?"
"I haven't thought much about it." He shuffled on the branch. After a while, he rose and grabbed the bark deep with his talons. He strutted back and forth. "Did I have success? I suppose. But I was the weakest of my flock."
"You?" She was young still but he looked reasonably-sized, to her.
"Thanks to your mother, you and your siblings are all stronger than me. Even as I made my home in the grove, I knew I was the most ignorant of the animals there. The ravens were smarter than me. The foxes were wiser. You are probably smarter and wiser, too."
"Then how did you win? Why does everyone call you 'Grandfather of the Berries' and 'Resilient Crow?'"
"Hah!" he cawed.
"Well, that's what they call you."
"Little one, I did not survive by trying harder. I tried and failed, tried and failed. I gave up many times. But I came back. I had to. I returned because I failed elsewhere. I gave up in those places. But not here, not quite. And I did not get berries every day. The ravens and foxes drove me off. I came back. I didn't outsmart anyone. But every time I fled from a larger animal, I came back."
"So you were smart, after all."
"No."
"You were wise."
"No." He ruffled his feathers. "All the other large animals gave up. That's it. One day, I woke and realized I was the only one who had persisted."
"You outlasted everyone else."
"Maybe." The older crow shrugged his wings. He leaned his head to one side as he looked at one of his youngest descendants. With a deep breath, he said, "So far."
-- copyright 2025 by Eric Gallagher, Secret Hippie
