Wakened by Crows
In the woods, the sky
of our sleep breaking,
piece by piece. Nothing visible
in the leaves but the blackness
moving gradually off as light
starts to ping back its notice.
My father would caw
and the crows would answer,
and he’d stand there like a boy,
shit-grin-delighted,
caw-caw, caw-caw.
This is left, this is left,
of the old life, is what he heard.
You could see it
in his eyes. He shot a crow
once, for no reason, he said,
and he cried at its dense black,
its perfectly curved beak.
I was a child, listening,
waiting to be seen,
but it was only the calling,
and the voice was air,
and the air was nothing
human, and I was standing
under the pines and hemlocks.
How hard it was,
this is what I want to say, to wake
from that disappearing,
to answer the old life
with this one.
