The Crow Poem by Jeff Siegel

The crow stands plump
With his spindly legs
And feathered rump.

And his eyes, lidless and black
With a tapered beak
And rigid back.

And I stare at him
In full disdain,
A scavenger by nature
With a history of bane.

Then with a huff, he croaked
Gutteral and deep,
And began to rant,
As if provoked.

'To you, my plumage
Is as mundane as the ink.
And my song, beastly,
Gritty and out of sync.'

'And I roll with the winds
Like a shadow in the sky.
But to you, no eagle,
No dove, no songbird am I.'

And I harken his words in fascination,
This feathered thief of accusation.
Could read my thoughts without translation,
And cast them back without hesitation.

'Enough! ' I shouted above his babel,
But on he kept like an angry rabel.

And in rage, his truth
I could stand no more,
And cast a stone of vengence
That struck his feathered core.

Down he fell
In a weighted flump,
And death did come
With its mighty trump.
Struck down by my hand
In fevered violence,
A prismatic day,
Now faded in silence.

Many stars have fallen
Since that day of torment,
And not one hour goes by
When I don't think and lament

Of the song I silenced,
A song of opine,
In a being so loathsome,
In a being like mine.