No sooner had I settled in
At one of my favorite spots
High above the ocean,
Than I noticed a crow
Perched
On the last exposed rock
Bobbing up and down on her spindly legs
Berating the frothy chaos
And tumult
Of the indifferent sea.
This crow was angry!
It was as if there were two soundtracks.
One wind carried her voice to me
While an offshore wind all but muted
The roar of her nemesis, the sea.
It was as if I was privy to the trial
Of Crow versus Sea.
Caw!
Caw!
Caw!
She railed against surge and thunder.
Where she was perched
Was as close as she could be
To annihilation.
I'm telling you, she was perched
Within the very salt-breath
Of the devouring mother!
But still she cried out
In language strangely amplified:
Caw!
Caw!
Caw!
Out of respect
And with increasing awe
I witnessed her challenge,
So small
That, if I withdrew my focus
To gaze upon the setting
Of her moment on the rock,
She all but disappeared
As if snatched away
By an impervious wave.
Then she stopped.
I guess she had said her piece,
And she flew off to the right.
I watched her for as long as I could.
Once she was out of sight
I found myself looking back
At the empty rock
And at the crashing waves.
And then I felt the armor
Of my innocence fall away
As must happen with many a jurist.
For, as I rose,
And got ready to move on,
I felt like a one-man jury
Delivering the verdict --
Guilty on all counts.
Guilty.
Guilty.
Guilty.
...............
I don't feel the need to say too much about the writing of this poem except to state that the poem is an accurate description of something that actually happened. Someone else would have perceived the dramatic relationship between the crow and the sea very differently, but for me, it was archetypal, it was amplified. The lines that encapsulate the spirit of this poem for me are:
I'm telling you, she was perched
Within the very salt-breath
Of the devouring mother!
But still she cried out
In language strangely amplified:
This captures how, just as at a trial in which a "victim" of a crime, in summoning the courage to testify their truth of what happened before a jury, might be transformed right before out eyes into a hero, inspiring us (the jury) to speak our own truth in the face of or within the "salt breath" of annihilation.
(Article changed on Jul 03, 2022 at 12:10 PM EDT)
