Crows
A family of crows lives and nests close to our garden. Here are four of them together on the same branch. Two years ago, there were five of them. Last year there were seven and this year ten flew in the other day. They are such beautiful flyers. All weather conditions, too, summer and winter, all year round visitors. I wish I could photograph the sound the air makes through their pinions as they swoop low over the roof on a warm summer’s afternoon.
And they leave such gorgeous tracks in the snow. It is always fun to have them around and totally raucous when they find something worth eating.
Geoff Slater has captured them to perfection. He’s better with his pencil than I am with my camera.
rogermoorepoet 
Just wanted to let you know that this lady farmer poet has almost finished the first draft of my lady farmer poem about crows. my email is anginoboro@gmail.com. If you can share yours in an email I’ll let you be the first and possibly the only other person to ever see this masterpiece! But only if you want to see it. But I’m working on it!
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goodness, Roger, you have to be the first person I know of who praises crows. But then maybe you don’t live on a farm as I did and have huge flocks of them descend all at once making an unholy mess of everything, chasing the dogs into the pond and stripping everything bare of the things they like to eat. Be thankful there are only ten and hope they remain at that potentially okay number. You sure don’t want them by the hundreds. I do admit though that when in small numbers they are quite a view! All that sleek black against the snow is outstanding!
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The author of the once and future king liked them as well, for their flight. That said, I saw about forty of them at the roadside last spring. They were scattered all over the body of a dead deer that looked as if t had been hit by the snow plow. It was almost as if they were pulling him / her out of the ditch. Not so pleasant then!!!! They are so intelligent!
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They were probably eating the carrion. One thing they do that at least helps keep the roadside clean! Scary though wo see it, turns my stomach but then being a farm girl I’ve seen worse sights than that. And we do need the scavengers even when it is sickening to see them at work. I hate it most when the field of newly planted corn is black with them. Expensive enough to plant the first time, it gets worse each planting since the later it is planted the less likely for a good crop. I guess I’m seeing them from the farmer’s point of view rather than the poet’s.
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In this case you are speaking both with the farmer’s point of view and the poet’s point of view. Farmers are poets too. And they can be artists. Just think of the crows over the corn field, painted by Van Gogh. It is the same cornfield where he shot himself next day. I have shivers every time I look a that painting. I have a print here at home on one of those lovely folding cubes. Ted Hughes wrote a lovely poetry book, Crow, all about Crows as survivors, as mercenaries, as scavengers … all the things you are talking about. You are a poet … from a different side of life than me … but still a poet, and when you write like this, a better poet than me. I could never get over the crows pecking out the lambs’ eyes and then later eating the blind carcases back home in Wales. A very ugly beauty. The world is a better place for farmer-poets like you, seeing it as it really is. Thank you so much, my lady farmer-poet!
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I actually began writing as a poet, only branching out to other styles later in life, but never thought of my views of crows as poetic. Maybe I’ll expand on that and see where it takes me. One other comment by a priest friend a few years ago when he was recruiting me to be music director at church: “God created canaries and he created crows. He deserves to hear them both!” That when I tried explaining to him that so many others had better voices than I, and very effective apparently as I began leading the singing the next day.
Thanks for your comment. I’m going to collect everything I can remember about crows for that poem. Maybe! That means you will also be in it if you don’t mind. No names usually but some quotes by you.
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My mother couldn’t hit the right note to save her life. I, on the other hand, had voice training early on (I won’t say anymore). When I complained about her singing she said: “God hears me sing and He knows I love Him.” Even the crow sings His praises. And yes, I’d love to be quoted in your poem.
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Now I’m wondering why I revealed all that and if I will actually hit the send button. If I do I would appreciate it if you could keep this one private.
I have removed the piece you wrote from public view and filed it in a safe, private place. I think we need to be reading your ‘farmer’s memoirs’ just as soon as you are ready to write them. If in doubt, send them to me by e-mail and I will attempt to edit them.
Best wishes and thanks for the trust,
Roger.
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I have removed the piece you wrote from public view and filed it in a safe, private place. I think we need to be reading your ‘farmer’s memoirs’ just as soon as you are ready to write them. If in doubt, send them to me by e-mail and I will attempt to edit them.
Best wishes and thanks for the trust,
Roger.
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Thank you,Roger! You are the best!
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