I walk these marshy lakeshore flats near dusk,
where sometimes, a thousand crows converge
around me on the grass, spread on the shallow
pools…. Most crowd the cottonwood and alder
groves, where the hour’s long light shimmers
to the black birds’ shiftings. God they’re loud—
they shout like senators, a roiling caucus
hammering out what keeps them all in office.
These sessions sound like hope—hope I’ll need
while other wings approach. Stiff hands slant up
like racing sails en masse across the west.
They shade the late day’s radiance, pink palms
Roman-style raised to that parade float
cloud that plays king. The whole thing’s shadow
closes in with guns and boots to flash-
flood fields and streets. We may have to watch
our kids inhale its aerosols, even flock
to join the dark incursion. We may jeer
against the stormers’ waxed-shut ears, or scream
into our pillows, grow sharp with our loves,
overdrink, smoke, over-ink our skin….
I hope I’ll walk here—these onyx eyes
encourage me to see that sick fleet scuttled.
Meanwhile the flapping silhouettes suggest
these hands and throat go make a song or write
a poem…or a letter? I’ll consult
the crows tonight. They shuttle close enough
I feel the tail-breeze. Can’t translate their calls,
but swear they know each tilt of flight or caw
can slice the air into an altered world.
So as I walk home I’ll ring my daughter.
Swing a tavern stop to meet my son?
Later, I’ll find if these arms can circle
someone who scoots nearer under cover.
That rumble in the walls, we’ll let it stand
for our incoming trouble, what must swarm
through and be outlived until it’s gone—
this next among the countless gales will end
as have the rest, in hanging vapor, dust,
and our heads shaking in disgust and wonder.
Let the sky-domed house of crows propose
to us who have the hands, love’s small acts,
heirlooms lighter than those plumes, be passed
along to young who’ll hoot and run on shores
where blue-black feathers scatter sun.
–
Jed Myers is author of three books of poetry—most recently Learning to Hold (Wandering Aengus Press, Editors’ Award, 2024), and previously The Marriage of Space and Time (MoonPath Press) and Watching the Perseids (Sacramento Poetry Center Book Award)—as well as six chapbooks. Recent honors include the Northwest Review Poetry Prize, the River Heron Poetry Prize, and the Sundress Chapbook Editor’s Choice. Poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Rattle, The Poetry Review, RHINO, Poetry Northwest, Southern Indiana Review, The Southeast Review, and elsewhere. Myers lives in Seattle, where he’s editor of Bracken.
