A Murder of Crows

The crow glides overhead to Rooky Wood.
Like sooty marks of pen across white pages
he scribbles black-edged meaning on the clouds.
He breaks my line of sight to the horizon,
he punctuates my light with sooty flight.

The garden murmuring of doves is ruptured,
by harsh and croaky calling to the murder.
The song-birds shout alarm: air full of danger;
blind hatchlings cower, shivering in snug nests,
but gangs of claws and beaks patrol the borders.
Stark murder squabbles, feasting, in my trees.