On This Road

Coming back from dropping my son off at school I saw a duck, being followed by a lot of little yellow fuzzy baby ducks, trying to make their way down a busy street, they were cornered off parallel against the edge of the sidewalk, and with so many parents dropping off their kids in haste along the street , it is amazing they made it as far down as they did.  Then a crow approached. He kept jumping in three steps towards the babies and then then one step back, then three more in again. More crows were waiting in the tree above. A woman walking next to me screamed out "shoo shoo" to the crow--and it worked, at least for right then while we were present.
I started to stay, the regular real me would have stayed a little distance behind her, looking for crows, looking to stop traffic until I followed her to her destination, probably someones backyard with a pool or large birdbath....but I left, thinking about my lists, the dishes, the dirty clothes, all the clothes to still go through and hang back up in the closet, all my homework....as I my made my way farther and farther away, I kept looking back, realizing they were about to cross a busy intersection off a major street, if they even made it that far. I never saw them cross...God, let me stop worrying about these creatures and more importantly let them make it to their home safely. I know all of this is nature and death is a part of life, as well as suffering--but I saw them now, they have a face to me now, I felt her "mother's panic" as the crow kept getting in closer to her babies--let them make their way, have some peace--at least just for today.