Be Impressed
Crows
Hunch in the trees
to gossip
about God and his inexorable
experimenting,
about deer guts and fish so stupid
you could sell them air
and how out in the deserts
there’s a dog called coyote
with their mind
but no wings.
Crow with Iroquois hair.
Crow with a wisecrack
for everybody,
Crow with his beak
thrust through a bun,
the paper still clinging.
Crow in a midnight blue suit
standing in front of a judge:
Your Honor, I didn’t
kill him,
just ate him
and I wasn’t impressed.
This end of this poem might be Peak Crow. He wears “a midnight blue suit,” has gorgeous “Iroquois hair,” and both wisecracks and gossips. He’s got the whole bun in his beak.
There’s no need to worry about Crow doing you in — that’s not his thing. His desire for roadkill is not as macabre as it sounds. We need crows and buzzards and “a dog called coyote” to clean up what’s left over. We cannot be spared death, but we can be spared maggots. Crow is just one of Mother Nature’s recyclers. Imagine if he and his pals weren’t around.
By the end of the poem, our corvid friend has been called to account for his deeds. He is, of course, unapologetic. Still, I have to think the honorable judge in a black robe has to be more than a little impressed with that corvid mind.