Death of Neighbor Crow
A poem of rhyming couplets
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On August 4, day of the New Moon and coincidentally also the old nature holiday of Lammas this year, I found a deceased crow on the sidewalk outside my gate. It had clearly died weeks before, but based on its location, I’m guessing it had just recently fallen from the very tall palm tree directly above, where crows in the neighborhood often perch and call to other crows perched in other palms blocks away. I hear them throughout the day from my office chair. Finding this crow was a surprisingly moving moment and the experience stayed with me long afterward.
Death of Neighbor Crow
I bend to lift my neighbor crow
dead some weeks and dusty now,
fallen only recently
from the tallest tree.
Her weight is nothing. Feathers cling
to tiny bones: her skull, her wings.
The body rests as evidence
of all the miracles we miss.
The concrete sidewalk stretches,
traffic blurring at the edges,
death a sudden turn that proves
a pulse is animated, moves.
How fierce the need to dig the earth,
a debt inherited at birth.
The street is terrible and rough.
Apologies are not enough.
