A Murder of One
...written on 11.05.08, @ 12:19 a.m.
I get synchronicity and serendipity mixed up. Which one is this? I had been searching off and on for years for the words to a poem about crows that my grandfather always told me whenever we would meet. He died in 1982. Sometime in the early 90’s, I remember having an intention to renew my search. I was out shopping for some new music (after a somewhat younger date had said my taste in music was ‘classic’ rock) and took just about everything the clerk recommended, when I asked him to also add whatever was playing in the store at the time. Next day in my room, I’m vacuuming, not quite hearing the store featured CD, but suddenly I turned off the vacuum cleaner, ran over to the CD player and backed it up to hear my grandfather’s poem. It was at the end of the song “A Murder of One” on the Counting Crow’s album August and Everything After: “Well I dreamt I saw you walking up a hillside in the snow / Casting shadows on the winter sky as you stood there, counting crows / One for sorrow, two for joy / Three for girls and four for boys / Five for silver, six for gold / Seven for a secret never to be told.” I felt like my grandfather was saying hello.