Saint Anthony Falls

A language of snapping
twigs and smoke drifts
overhead, between the lindens
and the stupid streetlights.
The crows descend.
They drape the neighborhood
in a black net. They are a system.
Each bird a node, a hard knot
that dissolves at dusk.
Electronic eyes can be fooled
to believe day is night
by outstretched wings.
On brittle winter afternoons
crows can be found
warming themselves like this,
silhouettes in prayer,
still as the snow that creaks
below. Their minds,
virgin forests of new ice.
It is evening. A murder gathers.
The crows are about to change
everything.

Copyright © 2007 William Waltz All rights reserved
from Black Warrior Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission