Hey, Crow

‘Hey, Crow,’
I say in my mind
and he flips up into the air
just before a truck
rounds the bend, huge
on the early morning road.

He is all points: beak,
opening wing-tips, tail
and splayed claws
on dangling legs;
jagged, ragged black
lifting calm and quick.

Then we are past
and the mist
thickens down the valley,
swathes of smoky cloud
filling all hollows except
the bright path we travel.

‘What’s all this light?’ I ask,
‘Look how the sun shines!’
The fog around us towers,
spills up surrounding hills.
Between, our sky is a channel
radiant blue. From high,
one barking laugh.


Published in OCHO #24  (the poets-on-twitter edition – after a few years, no longer available to read in issuu, sadly, but can be bought as a book: see my right side-bar)

In May 2016, linked to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #304