A Parliament, Sudden and Momentary

It was mid-afternoon,
still and bland.
The sunlight clear,
the day's tasks lay undone.

And then, a small rustle turned huge
as a parliament blew in, filling
the big-leaf maples in my backyard.
They swept in and suddenly
the trees were heavy with black bodies,
swaying and flapping their wings
they yelled and cackled.
They were a great wind,
swirling up from somewhere,
forcing my attention to them.

I could not understand their dialogue.
I don't know what matter of great import
was being debated, but the arguments
flew back and forth with a fury.
I could only imagine what political maneuvers
were in play, what family houses held
their honor on the line, what epic crow
poem was being enacted before my eyes.

 Then they were gone.
A few stragglers
  came through
 over the next hour,
but they were too late
for the main event and
for the most part no one paid them much attention.

2 of Pentacles

In martial arts we are taught that being tense slows us down. When we force stillness upon ourselves, we hold our bodies in place by pushing inward from all directions. Isometric. It takes a lot of work to do this bit of nothing, and it slows down your response time. Any time you decide to move in one direction, you must first relax everything that's pushing you elsewhere. But if you start relaxed, you can immediately move in any direction quickly, as needed.