(n) crow: clever featherglint so black it’s no longer black but instead
shines green like want and maybe that’s why he covets what shines
….what reeks.. what feels lost to another once it is gone
(n)(v) murder: they show up black tie noisy dressed to kill but did
that one crow on the branch above me actually kill the little black
cat whose head it dropped to crack on the ground at my feet not
three minutes after a man asked me to keep an eye out for his lost
black cat…. or did the crow overhear and bring the coyote-damp
head as an answer to this man’s loss so that the hole in his family
could fill with a flood that would gradually subside instead of
staying empty from not knowing…. when I run across the new
topography after yesterday’s storm where new rivers careened
down from the ridge making deep ravines that branch smaller and
smaller until they are like a drained vascular system laid on the
earth’s surface…. I think it looks like the dried-out rivulets of the
american west that thirst for another storm and I wonder if this is
what the world looks like to a crow in search of shiny treasures
(v) crow: shouts and laughter I misinterpreted for too long.. maybe
sometimes they tell stories to remember the way through the
changed landscape.. all those new ravines… maybe when someone
says earth-shattering they don’t really mean the damage to the
land itself but to the things they love that drag their small lives
across it