A MEMORY OF CROWS

by Emily Black

 
I feel dizzy from looking at leafy shadows
falling on an open notebook where I sit
in my garden. Spring has truly come at last
after a hard winter of isolation.
 
Birds seem happier than usual or maybe
I am hearing them with new ears. I watch
robins bounce around like happy children,
jays squawk and fuss, and cardinals reign 
supreme in regal scarlet feathers.
 
A crow caws in the distance, then approaches
near. He struts and looks at me from a sideways
stare. I’m here, he caws, then louder, I’m here!
I’m here, he insists. His loud, croaking voice
demands my attention; it stirs an ancient
awareness in me and in my trance-like memory
I dance to a gypsy tune around a pagan fire.

 
* * * * *

Emily Black, the second woman to graduate from the University of Florida in Civil Engineering, engaged in a long engineering career as the only woman in a sea of men. Lately she’s been busy writing vignettes of her life and has two poems in the March issue of Verse-Virtual and more to be printed in the June issue of Door is A Jar and the October issue of Sac Magazine. Emily was selected as Poet of the Week by Poetry Super Highway for the week of March 22-28, 2021.