At first light the larks over the rye field borrowed the ears of grain as tiny microphones. They said hello to the wind, nodded to the sun, and sang exactly one good morning.
We asked at the kiosk by the square. A woman with a paper bag of seeds said the birds had opened a concert in the stubble. The baker shook her head. They only borrow a stalk until breakfast, she said. The park keeper wrote in his leaf notebook that the sun likes to sit in the front row.
By the next afternoon one lark came back to the same ear. The grain still leaned toward the song, as if it remembered the hello, and the rest of the field kept the morning quiet for tea.