Crow, now I must leave my cozy computer game
just because you are calling, somewhere there
among the shiny, dripping trees
I hear your noisy conversation.

How many of you are there now,
two or three, or more?
Here come two, one follows
And the answer is three.
You strut on the lawn, lower your beaks
to the ground, lift and perch on the
branches of the great pine,
caw at each other for a while,
your bodies dipping and bowing.
Is that emphasis or frustration?
Finally you all spread wing
and flap away.

What did you discuss?
what was your conversation?
Of your deep concern about the
planet’s health, that take different themes
from where you land that day?
Does the pine contribute news
gathered from some underground
root-system far and wide,
of plant-life suffocation and starvation,
of depleted soil and aquifer desperation.

Perhaps you hear a grumble from raspberry canes
tangled among ragged grasses;
of something important to the berrypatch,
(the struggle to stud its branches with jewel fruit?)
compared to pine’s great gatherings,
to you perhaps a minor aggravation
but small is important too,

Crow, find a way send your message on the air,
fight it through to our unwilling comprehension.
Crow wisdom I’ll depend on now for salvation.