The Crow
The crow used to sit in trees,
High rocks and old snags.
Now she sits on our fences and stop signs,
Garbage cans and telephone wires.
… She doesn’t care.
She took the scraps
When the wolves and mountain lions were done
But she’s just as happy now with road kill.
The crow always stayed away from
The people that beat drums
And although now there’s more humans everywhere
She can still keep her distance.
And even when
Sometimes now
The shells of her eggs
Are too thin and break
Or the chicks come out malformed and die
There’s always enough that make it.
It doesn’t alarm her.
After all, this hard new world still has
Sun and river, rain and grass, wind and cricket
And one day soon
When we all lie rotting beside our machines
She’ll be there
To pick our bones.