Mama Crow Poem by Paul Clement Czaja

A robin’s song woke me this Saturday with its insistent
“Wake up! Wake up! You sleepy head! ”
As effective an alarm clock. I got up,
Got washed, got dressed in my kaki shorts,
And got out into the cold morning.
Not knowing the time, I drove my old car into the village
And found out from the local bank’s large digital clock
That it was only 6: 50 am.
“Hmm, ” I thought, “such enthusiastic robins here in this land.”
Having time, I decided to take an adventurous spin on a country road yet unexplored by me to see where it would take me.
I drove west out of the sleepy village and soon was up on a high flat
With stubble corn fields on either side of me.
Suddenly a crow flew low and straight from the field on my right
Very seriously crossing the road thirty yards in front of me.
She was carrying a foot long twig in her beak
And was heading for the distant woods way over there on the left.
She was flying low and fast and straight as an arrow.
Wow! An about to be Mama Crow
Getting an early morning start at building her nest!
How about that! How about that for a sure sign of spring:
The blackest of all birds - this carrion eater of road kill –
Being driven by a maternal instinct to prepare things for new life. Once again the Spirit Who is Wisdom was teaching me
That within the deeps of all animated life there throbs
A caring, nurturing, selfless heart of love
Causing us to act for the sake of others.
As I drove on into the brightening day,
I remembered my Morning Prayer:
“May I so live the life of love this day that all those
With whom I have anything to do at all
May be as convinced that love is in this world
As they are of the sunlight and rain.”