The Murder of Crows

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 A Murder of Crows

A murmur, a flutter, whispers in the breeze.
A Murder of Crows settles among the trees.
A blue forest of woods! Where can it be?
Somewhere in Fantasy? Some place in time?
Where reality abates and fancy combines.
Where a community of birds is convening a council
to debate and define judgments they'll all be bound to!

Homebodies back from a long winter migration
Navigators having mapped out this specific location.
These mystical woods deeply, steeped in folk lore.
chosen over mountain, farm land, river bank or sea shore

Orange and sunlight infuse the scene
warmth brushed about the dark wings
of these creatures so, fierce and so, keen..
Just the right colors, to highlight the mystery they pose.
Secrets they keep, what they know, hide and suppose

Proud, willful and focused, stubborn, intelligent, wise
their feathered cloaks keeping their knowledge disguised,
Like Druids of old, draped in wisdom and magic,
librarians of truths, ancient histories, mysteries, mythologies,
the profound, comic and tragic,
It's all written there, tucked within the blink of their eyes.

Pretty to some, scary to others
ominous in onyx, shimmering plummage can smother
Ebony black, shiny and sleek, talon to beak.
Ready to protect as well as to seek.
They are great mimics of animals, sounds they repeat
Not quite a language but their caws are distinct.
We ask them questions, they never reply.
Queries unanswered, they neither confirm nor deny.
As if these curious birds with their strange cawing words
don't care and won't listen or acknowledge they heard.
They just observe.

Memory keepers learning from experience..
Decisions discerned reviewing their consequence.
Crow society is developed and extremely complex.
They know their place, responsibilities they all accept.
Missions they don't forget, duties they don't neglect.

Resilient, adaptable they just survive.
Unity rules them, keeps them strong and they thrive.
Teamwork is key to these birds of a feather.
They forage for food, working together,
Stashing it in "caches" they'll consume some time later,
hunting is crucial to the crow food procuring curator.

Some crows mate in pairs building nests high up in trees.
While yearlings, the young ones, with adult non-bound ones
go "roosting" forming another branch of this crows family.

"Mobbing" in groups to chase away predators and foes.
Don't let their hopping gait fool you, there's strength in those toes.
Ask the ants they crush for their formic acid within,
when they are rolling over on them, again and again
to ward of the parasites that often plague them.

These watchers of everything, all that they see,
never forget, they just recall collectively.
Identifying enemies, their features remembered,
they know whose been a foe and who they offended.
Surrounding their enemies they unite and confine, them
both judge and jury of humans as well as crow kind then
it's best to be wary of any Murder of Crows.
Why? Because they can pole out an eye or peck off a nose.

Their judgment, rendered, their sentence imposed
with a nod of their head or the blink of their eye
the jury now satisfied takes to the sky.
While you blind, scarred and bleeding but still breathing
best be grateful they stopped when they did
because with another blink of an onyx eye lid
They could easily return with a vengeance to KILL you instead!

 July 15, 2017

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