A Murder of Crows (Wisdom's Wilderness) P.N.Crawford 2018


The coastal mountains rise beyond the ocean’s tidal reach,

And stand as sentries over clouds that cloak the sandy beach.

Cathedral spire trees adorn the range’s highest peak,

Their pinnacles are places nesting crows forever seek.


The crows will take the high ground from all enemies below,

The lowland, fraught with danger, is a place they seldom go.

They do it in great numbers called “a murder of the crows”,

The wisdom in this practice nearly every creature knows.


“Our Strength Will Give You Safety” is the motto of the birds,

The actions that support it make the saying more than words.

They’re often seen prevailing over Wolf, or Hawk, or Owl,

They mob and fight together against animal or fowl.


Tonight a silent danger slithers up the cedar bark,

To raid the corvid nest eggs from the shadows of the dark.

Crow Mother sitting vigil feels uneasiness within,

Vibrations from her nest twigs cause her warning to begin!


Her beak is wide and shrilling as she screams her danger call,

The snakebite comes so quickly she can’t feel the fangs at all.

Alarm is answered swiftly and the snake cannot retreat!

It’s locked from head to rattle in the clutch of corvid feet!


The rattler tries to struggle as his captors fly him high,

He writhes and jerks and wiggles as he plummets down to die!

The crows return to celebrate the victory they had gleaned,

The Mother Crow lay lifeless in the treetop’s tragic scene.


The dawn will come in sadness for the rookery of crows,

While they hold a reverent funeral as the early sunbeams glow.

Then raise their many voices in a ruckus loud and great,

As eight escort the fallen to her place at Heaven’s Gate.