Crows in the fall

Crows in the fall
make their long calls
in three cries
and live, on average,
8 years; so the birds I heard as a child,
from the woods behind the nursing home
where Great Grandma Gow died
are, like her, all dead
ten or more years hence—
while their sad, wise cries
still echo in my head,
and I can still hear my Great Grandma Gow
scold my scrawny other-self
for being a child out of bed;
can feel the hot retort in my chest
even now: that I wanted to see
my parents going to the car.
Before we would leave, my parents
would talk at length in quiet tones
to my father’s parents, as the kids
ran around the lot, and I would caw
back at my friends the crows.




October 2017