Crows in the Theater

Sunday saw me off campus and heading down to Portland to watch Oedipus Rex with my Latin class. I was struck by the blue of the hills as we drove past; apparently I make a rather bad traveling companion because I spend so much time staring out the window and commenting excitedly on everything that passes. Upon reaching Reed College, where the play was being hosted, I noticed two things: one, the great, mulchy and rather untamed-looking river, and two, the crows.

The river was rather beautiful, despite being covered with pale green plants and algae. As I sat waiting for the play to begin, I saw two blue herons swoop down and land within the water. Their dusty blue feathers made a beautiful contrast against the greenish water; it was truly picturesque. I also saw ducks, although they were too far off to identify, and other fisher birds swooping through the trees and down upon their prey.

Oedipus was performed in an outdoor ampitheater, which of course means that nature poked around while the actors went about their business. Nature, which means random wildness, right? Maybe not, in the case of Reed's crows. As we learned in Crow Planet, crows are pretty intelligent birds. Even if I had not known that before, I would have had my suspicions after Sunday. As the character of Oedipus spoke of the cries of birds that would echo through the skies, the crows circled, cawing racorously; when he spoke of the hush that would descend over the city, they sat still. My class and I watched in amazement as the crows volunteered their services as extras within the play. Had they seen it performed often enough to understand their 'cues', or was this truly a miracle of nature? Maybe we'll never know.

As the play wore (and I do mean wore) on into the rather gory ending, enormous dragonflies began to buzz overhead, swooping down and eating insects and generally adding to the eerie setting. They were unlike anything I had seen before: while I am accustomed to beautiful, colorful, fairy-like dragonflies, these were black, with curved abdomens that looked like stingers. I'm not even certain they were dragonflies. They swarmed around our heads, coming far too close for comfort and yet never descending onto our shoulders, although they did occasionally drop their prey onto our unsuspecting laps.

As we drove back to Salem, tired and hungry, I stared out the window and dozed. The sun was setting in a beautiful field of yellow and orange clouds, and as ever I was struck by the majesty that is all around us. We live here, on Earth, in nature. We're so, incredibly lucky. If nothing else, this class has taught me to appreciate that fact: we are lucky. The world is beautiful.