Crows

Earth is raw with this one note,
This battered making of a song
Narrowed down to a crow’s throat,
Above the willow-trees that throng

The crooking field from end to end.
Fixed as the sun, the grass, that sound;
Of what the weather has to spend,
As much a part as sky, or ground.

The primal yellow of that flower.
That tansy making August plain.
And the stored wildness of this hour.
It sucks up like a bitter rain.

Miss it we would, were it not here;
Simple as water, rough as spring.
It hurls us, at the point of spear.
Back to some naked, early thing.

Listen now. As with a hoof
It stamps an image on the gust;
Chimney by chimney a lost roof
Starts for a moment from its dust.