Perched out on a skeletal twig
Upon a leafless deciduous tree,
One lone crow turns his feathered head
And takes a look at me.
I know he has a piercing glance
Although I cant see his shadowed eye,
That has Im sure a sharpened view
As I go passing by.
A little subdued by his gaze
By his deeply dark forbidding stare,
Tis nonsense but I turn my face
And say a hurried prayer.
A scarecrow I see in the field
His straw stuffed arms outstretched in vain
Haphazard grin stitched on his face
Speaks silently of pain.
Tis then I hear the winging rush
Making the bare tree at once a roost
As hundreds flock to pick a perch
Their throaty cries are loosed.
I hear the caw the black crow makes
As his guttural calls cry to the night
That dirge times one, two hundred fold
Sets free in me a fright.
The path, a welcome turn ahead
But a quickened pace would prove my fear,
Slow steps to a funeral march
A murder of crows near.
A few more paces and I turn
When at last the road comes to an end
My beating heart about to burst
As I turn round the bend.
I dare to glance the scarecrows way
As that black crow lands on his empty head
Takes in his beak a button eye
And loosens up the thread.
Fair warned, tis best I go my way
Free of these sweet fields of golden husk
And quick pass this communal roost
That gathers with the dusk.
