Amoebic Swarms of Black Birds over old Brussels Urban Landscapes

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 18:45

From the old Brussels styled wooden window that lets out onto a blue stone and rod iron balcony, over a pre-automotive era medieval aged road, over the stone street – through the single paned old and distorted glass – above the terra cotta orange rooftops of the buildings attached to this house and the ones across the street – I can see just a narrow strip of sky. Just as the white light of sundown sets in swallowing up the blue sky of the day from the angle of the sun in decline this time of year at this latitude - From my place in a 21st century Villette I stood and watched black birds that seem to swim in the sky in that amoebic swarm together that only occurs this time of year. I think Vincent Van Gogh painted this bird swarm phenomenon in some long time famous painting of his. These swarms are mesmerizing. Before all those birds went out of view behind the street roof line, the whole swarm expanded and then flew close together as if the amoebae shape collectively decided to collapse in on itself into a dark black singular object. I wish I were outside the city in the damp flat fields of western Flanders in some small old farm house at a table with a window drinking tea watching this autumnal phenomenon. It felt like the closest one can get to observing Allah Almighty God from here in Flanders - I swear - it’s somehow true. That’s all we get as humans for seeing God in this lifetime if we take the chance to witness nature’s subtleties. Nothing more in this life time for us bad souls than these kinds of glimpses in nature as visual evidence of the Divine to long for. But if you think this way you find the Almighty in the blue of the sky - or the swift dark clouds we have here. You can find something of Allah even in the brisk autumn air. Or in the shudder of an urban growing mature tree as the wind takes its red and yellowed leaves. It is then that I don't feel alone - and then that I stop wanting. Meanwhile I just wish I were outside with the big sky on flat land with far away horizons. I want to be with dogs in fields and pastures free from walls and fences in a land where the cars and trucks have stopped because somehow capitalism collapsed and the oil became irrelevant and we could all take the time to watch Nature die from our greedy industrializations.