While the Berries are Still Between Brown and Green

The crows arrive with their babies
as the raspberries form and ripen, and as the chamomile blooms

And the choking-gargle
of feeding baby crows accompanies
the bushtits’ peeps,
the scrub jay’s shrieks,
and a finch scolding Little Sir as he stalks
through glowing and dappled garden stems,
	and as he crosses the street

As Her Majesty ignores him from her sunny spot
in the nepeta,
the catmint at A’s feet

A decade of feeding corvids
and keeping cats–we do puts bells on their collars
imagining the songbirds keep safe while
cultivating our murder; and each spring we wait
for crow babies
For that awful noise from insistent pink mouths
brought to our tree
just as we’ve taught them
or, perhaps, as they’ve taught we

	Last week, finally, we heard the racket
from the nest,
in one of the taller maples down the street,
crying, and gagging while crying again,
while our berries are still between brown and green,
and the chamomile and yarrow are just about to treat us
to color in our sunny border,
to the south,
toward the cries down the street, cries from pink mouths, until

two days ago
while placing nuts along the fence for Agent Smith,
the crow we can name by a grey patch at their right hip
(likewise there’s Rightfoot Reggie, and Knuckles too,
but I digress), I’m feeding Agent Smith when we hear the call
the clear, loud alarm turning Agent Smith’s head
alerting all the stealthy corvids who only now show themselves,
climbing into the sky from rooftop and tree, 
in unison
A sudden flight, together, off to the south
Unmistakable, the call,
and the response, to some threat, or urgent crow need
Crow business
we cannot see from our porch, in morning sun, A and me
with one of two cats at our feet

Then two days later,
today,
I notice while arranging nuts on the fence for the jay on the branch closest
to the porch, nearest A and me, wiping its beak,
a head tip, a side-eye glance before taking its chance on us and our nuts–
	I notice only the song of the chickadee
	no jay has squawked,
	nor have we heard the babies down the street
	No relentless pink mouths’ screaming FEED ME FEED ME

They haven’t cried all day yet this morning,
(—just fine with Ms Jay who is here for nuts with no crows,
thank you very much) and as she goes her way, I hear them coming
our small murder on the wing, barking, cawwing,
I see them
coming at me, with furious pace–chasing an eagle!
A bald eagle, full grown, racing past the utility pole tops 
coming at me from down the street,
nipped at by crows driving it at speed, right over my head
Easily three-times the size of any single crow,
flying for its life from our murder,
	and escaping, driven far off, far away from the nest
where no pink mouths have cried for two days
Where we can only assume they’ve died
Perhaps moved, perhaps learned to fly, perhaps
there’s something in my eye

One more day passes by,
now again that’s today,
garbage and recycling pick-up day
	and I only remember by the sound of my neighbor
	dragging cans like drums on wheels too wee
for her concrete’s exposed aggregate to be anything
but a racket, a different racket along the street
this early in the day, as I sit by the window
considering spring rain and back pain–
There it is, the awful screams
of baby crows from my neighbors backyard trees,
above her recently reduced laurels, leafed-out well enough with spring,
and where I see
baby crows practice flying from twenty or thirty feet
Circles, out and back from the tree where Agent Smith watches and sits
and barks out loud
and from where they all carry on, awful,
this racket in the trees
The gagging and choking feeding,
amidst the circles,
while our raspberries are still between brown and green

*Many thanks to the editors of Ambrosia Zine for including this poem in their ANIMAL issue this past winter!