CROW (Revised Version!)

Amongst morning’s yellow fragments, scattered on the leaves,

A whisper of feathers, soft and sharp.

Then a coarse, scraping cry,

From a black skull upraised against the light.

Crow - clutching at our fence with claws of coal, screaming against the wind!

I curse your black presence in our garden:

eviscerater, eye – gouger,

dragger of roadside guts, guzzler of dried vomit,

Death’s glossy dancing partner!

I snatch at a stone – but you are off, launching yourself

in a scruffy clump: feathers, bone, skin and cry

all re - forming in the air, as thrashing wings whack against the wind

and haul you to a safe tree.

Clumsily you flap off, knowing the ways of men.

And I, arm half raised, left foolish.

At night I find you: an abandoned standard,

wings imperiously outstretched;

your claws sunk into a shallow breeze

that stirs each feather mockingly;

in your spent eyes the glitter of stars.

Whoever brought your death,

the guilt is mine.

Geoffrey Dobbs

6/6/07