The words don't always come easily or quickly.

The words fly away like the hundreds of blackbirds in the elm trees that were shaped like tall severe wine glasses, branches draped above our first home next to the slough between the corn and the rice fields. I didn't notice the birds until they flew away, such were their voices and such are words.

Small, chattering, and when they fly there is a great rush of tiny black wings and then deafening silence.

I'm listening.