Advent Crows

Cawing, keening crows
loud overhead on the bike path;
inky silhouetted flock
against deep indigo sky,
twilight of Advent.

Lift, turbulence, beating wings;
cacophony in whorled air
become, somehow, invitation to
envelopment in mad feathered flight,
toward hidden social roost.

Memory of Colville’s Seven Crows
gliding in captured stillness
toward some opaque future,
encircled viewer drawn
forward in uncertain landscape,

or foreboding of Cyclist and Crow,
detailed symmetry in acrylic,
anonymous rider enamoured with
jet-black, prominent corvid
following or leading where?

Crow’s long history in folkloric fear:
murder, illness, carrion’s friend,
emblem in artist’s sinister series,
plot’s harbinger of the ominous,
memento of the malevolent.

Coal-black feathered companion, rather,
strutting syncopation on asphalt road,
perching, swaying on high spruce bow,
keen-eyed with intelligence.

Mustering, thousands-strong for nighttime
avian community, friendship, protection,
beauty for those who will see.
Settling, advent of crows,
rookery of joy.