Arden Miller | Black Bird Pie | Iron and Glass | 2004

When I was a boy, my Grandpa had many stories he would tell us of his own younger days in “the old country.”  One of these was a story of two men in his home village of Frøstrup, in Jutland at the north of Denmark.
In the course of performing duties at the country church, these two friends had each visited the church belfry, where they had both seen the same bird.
“That was quite some bird,” one remarked later, “a magnificent crow.”
“Yes, it was quite a bird,” said the other, “though it was a black bird.”
“Oh, but you are mistaken,” said the first man, “It was most definitely a crow.”
“I know my birds,” replied the other, “It was not a crow, but a blackbird.”
On and on this dialogue went, until it had replaced all other, and the two men found themselves no longer friends.  In fact, they stopped speaking to one another entirely.
As the years went by and the men found themselves attending all the same birthdays and baptisms and weddings and funerals, they slowly grew tired of their petty feud.  It was, after all, a very small town with not much room for such foolishness.
One day, at one of these events, one of them broke their long silence.  “You know,” he said, “we were once such good friends, and we have let such a silly thing as this take away from us.  Perhaps it is time for us to again be friends.”
“You are right,” said the other, “this has gone on far too long.  Life is too short to waste on such trifles.”
At this, the two men shook hands and embraced and cried and laughed and told each other stories of all their triumphs and mishaps during all the years they had not spoken.
They were again friends. 
Many hours later, the sun was coming up and it was finally time for them to go home.  As they shook hands in the warm parting, one said, “But you do know that it was a crow.”
“No, it was certainly a blackbird.”
”Crow.”
“Blackbird.”
And so on it went.
And so it still is.