The streets are quiet as I walk to the creek. I hurry through the ugly underpass, remembering a time when I loved the city and its grey places of decay.

In the woods, the sun lights up the bends of the creek where I sit on a log and draw two trees.

It’s not the forest’s fault I forgot how to love an urban eyesore.

On the way home a crow is in the underpass throwing his ingracious voice into the amplified cavern. I take a moment to consider the stately cement columns caught in the sideways light, then startle when a shadow slips along the street from the sidewalk above.

Who better than a loud crow to revive the glamour of an ugly underpass?