September Raven

by Len Krisak (January 2015)

             With clonic strut they come,

       Six starlings bent on feeding,

Stabbing the raddled lawn that’s just endured

Its fall re-seeding.

 

                      They annex, peck by peck,

                      One hardy patch of fescue,

Purple then green in sun that cannot come to

The grass’s rescue.

 

                      Not half so proud or sharp,

                      A raven also bent

On grub is stalking, sleeker than a Blackhawk’s

Hood ornament.

 

                      He is his appetite,

                      And driven by ravening need,

Picks at his food, an actor mimicking

Finicky greed.

 

                      A sheen so black it’s blue

                      Glazes the Corvus corax

A coat of jet, with a skin-tight jabot

Choking the thorax

 

                      Juddering its gobbets down

                      At nothing like full-throttle,

With muffled sounds a wino makes jug-jugging

The day’s first bottle.

 

                      The glistening, hungry eye

                      Set in its cowled head

Swivels like a gun-mount to shoot the starlings

It wishes dead

 

                      One glance to prove it covets

                      Even their tenuous seed,

And would devour, if it could, the ground

On which they feed.

 

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