Do Not Confuse Corvid with Some Other Kind of Bird, Lana Hechtman Ayers

I’ve never had much admiration for
songbirds, their tweets and twiddle
dee dees and twills grate on my nerves.
No. Give me the corvids with their low
cackles, their loud caws and aws, their yikes.
I’d rather be a magpie than a song sparrow,
capture the apex branch for my perch,
flickering feathers warning off other avians.
I’d rather be a raven than a thrush,
all bravado and rush.
There’s no pushing around a crow.
Growing up, I imagined myself
a black winged avenging angel
for all the kids like me who were bullied.
That never came to be, of course,
but when school was out for the summer,
I lay in the backyard staring up at
the velvet-quilled night
and witnessed the vast
universe above as a murder
of crows, row upon row upon row
of black birds poised in flight,
the stars their cosmic eyes,
blinking twinkling blessing,
nictitating at me, welcoming me,
flightless and friendless as I was,
into the clever and courageous corvid family.

©

Lana Hechtman Ayers’ poems have appeared in Escape Into LifeVerse Daily, and The Poet’s Café, as well as in her nine published collections. She manages three small presses on the Oregon coast in a town of more cows than people. Visit her online at www.lanaayers.com.

This Post Has One Comment

  1. Ron.

    Crow. My Spirit animal. Wonderful work, Lana. Thanks!

Leave a Reply

3 × one =

  • Post comments:1 Comment