Day: November 9, 2015

Hawk versus Crow

By Gary Glauber

Posted on

No one travels to this part of town anymore,
not since the 5:06 has been rerouted
and the filling station removed its pumps.

The sole radio station plays mostly static
cut with echoes of a distant broadcast,
the excitement of a local sporting contest.

Here it is all phantasmal and bleak.
I clearly hear the double screech overhead
and see proud brown wings flap in aerial attack.

Yet the underbird here, the smaller crow
caws loudly, like a chatty old woman
shouting out feats of raffish grandchildren.

This cackle draws an immediate response.
Black dots appear as if called out of thin air,
flying from distant branches to gather in force.

The twenty birds that populate the branches
of the early spring’s bare maple tree
understand how there is comfort in numbers.


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