NO ONE TALKS TO CROWS
            by Lynn Samsel
                c. 2005
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No one I know talks to crows the way I do.  
Probably no one listens to them either.  

Perhaps, somewhere else, someone I don't know
does converse with the corvids.

But nobody else I know sets out peanut butter 
to catch their attention, or freezes in wonder 
when one sets its heavy-body fuselage down on the deck.  

Compared to the flirting, flitting finches, 
those tiny flying thistle-seeking missiles, 
Crow is the original wide-body, L-1011 decked in black.  

Fashionable or not, in vogue or out, black crow, 
black as a quasar-condensed rainbow.

So, as I was saying--Caw!  Caw!--
I seem to be alone in my conversational propinquity.  
Propriety aside, 
I caw back any time I get the chance.  

Magpies and jays are part of family Corvidae, 
cousins to Corvus the Crow. 

Some say that magpies are messengers of the spirit world.
Maybe these cousins have that in common.

I'd hate to miss an important message 
because it came dressed in feathered black 
and spoke a different language.

So I listen.  I watch.  I wait.  
I take note of their habits and patterns.  
I repeat the phrases I hear.  

Sometimes I know they're laughing at me;
my accent is hilarious, I'm sure.

But lately the same pair has been hanging around.  
Every morning these two edge nearer to my house, 
one tree closer at a time.  

Yesterday the male circled around my head 
in a look-see spiral 
before landing in that nearer tree. 

And today the female was pacing up and down 
on the grass across the street, 
something important on her mind.

I want to catch the message; 
I long to be caught up by the mystery, 

flung flying into new orbits, 
coordinates courtesy of Corvus brachyrhynchos.

This morning I set out more peanut butter.  

I'm willing to learn.


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