Old man sung up a crow, imbued
him with all kinds of mess,
a million ways of saying Yes
to anything that’s crude

He was divisive, he could slice
an ordinary stone into a knife
as if what cut might somehow be alive
and thrive on strife

Some said he’d killed the lark
Stone dead, that’s what they said
(though others would insist instead
her own song broke her heart)

And she – she was a battle, never right
so when she opened up the door, blew out the light,
who knows which one had won or lost the fight?
— Then it was night.

Image: Falling crows by Flickr user Dino ahmad ali, published under a Creative Commons Attribution Generic 2.0 (CC BY 2.0) license. Contrast and lightness altered for this illustration.