A crow is dying in my driveway.
It hunkers on the gravel,
moves sluggishly, beak opening, closing,
silent caws, like a plea.
There’s nothing I can do.

It may have the virus, carried by mosquitoes,
that has felled so many crows in this area.
We humans could be victims too,
so I watch, almost superstitiously,
from my closed window,
like a townsman during the Plague.

Now it lies on its side,
one filmy blind eye blinking.
A fingered wing flaps convulsively for the sky,
as if trying to escape this predator inside.

A final spasm leaves it twisted, wrung,
its feet nearly gnarled in knots.
I have watched all this with alarm, pity,
and a strange curiosity.

I have seen things die before –
a cat, a gerbil, and once, a man.
I looked on, helpless spectator
as life squeezed out as from a tube.

Each time I had a question I couldn’t form
to an answer that wasn’t there.

09/24/2001

Posted on 09/24/2001
Copyright © 2026 Bruce W Niedt