The Time of the Crows

It is the time 
of the crows, 
and, look, 
there they are, 
like dark rocks in a stream, 
the sky catching around them 
in thin blue light, 
their bellies glinting 
off streetlights, 
and car windows, 
the sunset 
sickly pink 
in front of them, 
the scaffolds 
of copper 
and steel 
somehow less smooth than bark,   
and cold against their talons, 
but the earth, 
it tells them 
that this is the spot, 
and so they return, 
year after year,  
century after century, 
and they tell stories 
of how it used to be;  
the Douglas firs 
plump with sap,  
and the muddy slopes 
of the great river 
open from hill to shore, 
and the bobcats, 
how they taunted them, 
laughing down 
at their low-stalk sauntering 
through the ferns, 
and the vine maple, 
and the false-lily-of-the-valley, 
and, oh, those early dusks, 
the way the sun would get lost  
in mossy tree limbs, 
the silence, 
the stillness, 
the mountain wind. 
The crows, 
they speak of it, 
they sing of it, 
for they are the ones 
who are still here.