Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

A column I like to follow in my local newspaper, dealing with animals, had a great story today. A woman wrote in that one morning she heard a cacaphony of crows in her backyard, and she looked through the window and crows were surrounding her swimming pool. She stepped outside and there was a crow lying on it's back in the pool. She grabbed a rake and gently lifted him out of the water and carefully lay him down on the path. The crows retreated to the trees, still watching and making a ruckus. The crow got up and began walking, at which point the observing crows went dead silent. She went back inside, and eventually the crows all left, including the floating one. The columnist suggested the crows had assumed the crow was dead and when he was resurrected, they were stunned into silence. She thought the noise was a warning to other birds that danger was near, and the silence was shock and awe at the rescue. She reminded the reader that maybe she should put out some food for the crows, so they wouldn't identify her somehow as the source of the danger, because crows remember faces, and leave gifts for friends and dive bomb enemies. I like to think that crows in that area are spreading the news of the miraculous recovery of one of their brethern. It's how religions begin.