“Eleven Ways of Seeing a Crow”

Inspired by Wallace Stevens’ “13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”

Linder O’Rourke, Class of 2023

I.
Swerving and reflected
In a watery ditch:
Right wing tilted and anchored 
to blades of blue stem;
left wing lifting into cumulus.
II.
Dark pairs on rooftops
Signaling intentions for the day;
Avine telegraph
Parting emerald limbs for safety.
III.
Invisible fledglings know
The grace of falling
Featherward to ground.
IV.
A scrim of live oaks
Plays stage to the murder crew
Patrolling roof tiles in summer heat.
V.
One flawed caw 
Among the song from a throng
Of swooping adolescent blackness…
VI.
I see sentinels grooming solo
In suburbia
Presenting each wing to the air,
Checking.
VII.
Umbrous shiny fingery feathers
Droop in gray rain-light
One winter day.
VIII.
Nature’s discreet nester,
Crow is down-sized to mid-canopy,
in unrevealed mystery.
IX.
Roosting in fall silence, 
They lean in, flutter together
Against wet droplets
On mossy gritty branches.
X.
Distress at mid-day
Brings raucous revelry in
A spring rookery
Dangling out over the stream.
XI.
Early morning:
Corvid collision at the suet station
On the Shumard, one casualty.


O