Whether the same crow as last year has returned
or this is a different crow with the same habits
is as much a metaphysical issue
as a zoological one – whichever
is the case the sequence of events
in the Great Lockdown is being repeated.
Early morning the crow flies in, and places
a piece of bread in the bird bath – where blackbirds
have bathed, and robins sipped; flies off; returns
in hours, and snacks on the marinated bread;
flies off; returns, and so on until
the starchy carrion has all gone.
Last year baguettes were preferred – this year crusts
with butter and strawberry jam. I watch,
from the kitchen window, the creature
gripping the edge of the diminutive
bird bath – not a sable, obsidian
feather out of place, its neolithic beak
supping fastidiously. We thrive
on patterns me and the crow – it snacking
on throwaways, me making nine, ten,
eleven beats to the line. So is this,
perhaps, some prank from beyond the grave – Ted
Hughes’s Crow mocking my orderly verses?
Or a hoax – the black spot posing as white bread?
When I inspect this morning’s dunking –
a triangular piece of garlic bread –
the crow, on a nearby chimney, sets up
such a cawing one would think, in the words
of the old saw, the world was about to end:
when we may perish from surfeit, or from
puzzlement, when earth, air, water are
consumed with plastic particulates,
and small family groups in unnamed deserts
defend their pots of fire?
By David Selzer