San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly

Joe Gardner

MURDER OF CROWS 

I remember

softly
On the roofs
On the wires
Along the fences
And the street signs
Every limb and branch
All rustle black
With these heralds
Of the One Eyed Father
Murders of crows
All of Lakewood
Silently watched
By obsidian eyes
 
Then
As if from some mysterious
Commune
As one the great cawing
Choir of carrion eaters
Would take to wing
A great blackened storm cloud
Of beak and talon and feather