THE TRICKSTER

Whether the same crow as last year has returned

or this is a different crow with the same habits

is as much a metaphysical issue

as a zoological one – whichever

is the case the sequence of events

in the Great Lockdown is being repeated.

Early morning the crow flies in, and places

a piece of bread in the bird bath – where blackbirds

have bathed, and robins sipped; flies off; returns

in hours, and snacks on the marinated bread;

flies off; returns, and so on until

the starchy carrion has all gone.

 

Last year baguettes were preferred – this year crusts

with butter and strawberry jam. I watch,

from the kitchen window, the creature

gripping the edge of the diminutive

bird bath – not a sable, obsidian

feather out of place, its neolithic beak

supping fastidiously. We thrive

on patterns me and the crow – it snacking

on throwaways, me making nine, ten,

eleven beats to the line. So is this,

perhaps, some prank from beyond the grave – Ted

Hughes’s Crow mocking my orderly verses?

Or a hoax – the black spot posing as white bread?

 

When I inspect this morning’s dunking –

a triangular piece of garlic bread –

the crow, on a nearby chimney, sets up

such a cawing one would think, in the words

of the old saw, the world was about to end:

when we may perish from surfeit, or from

puzzlement, when earth, air, water are

consumed with plastic particulates,

and small family groups in unnamed deserts

defend their pots of fire?

 

 

 

 

Covid 19 pandemic lockdownCrowTed Hughes