Published in the Humanist, July/August 2008

Of Crows

The beauty of crows should not be forgotten.
When colored bullets race down the road's black veins,
Their short, broad wings deliver them skyward.

A crow's tastes are unsentimental, a testament
To the infinite hunger life wants satisfied.
One must be willing to consume the whole world.

Of the crow's tool-making, little needs to be said.
More fascinating is their discernment, how they use them
Only when beak or talons will not otherwise suffice.

When Noah received the olive branch from the dove,
He wept, not for joy, but for his lost crow,
The beloved bird that played games with straws.

Yes, they unsettle, like a genuine thought of death.
But what of their raucous way of swinging on branches
Without fear they'll break? Isn't joy as unsettling as a crow?

And what bird is more likely to survive our apocalypse?
It won't be because we're alike. Crows have nothing human
About them and thrive without reference to us, like God.

Paradiso

No blue grocery bags rustle
from the lindens
lining the freshly paved avenues.
No women stop before windows
to stare at mannequins
blank as angels.
A dog barks from a rose garden.
Motor scooters hurry, hummingbird-mad,
whenever the bright blossoms
of traffic lights turn green,
and the tanks everyone feared
would rumble in and shatter
grave- and cobblestones alike
languish in empty lots outside town,
peace having swept over them
like a storm of rust.
In the beginning, the minor chords
of waiters smoking outside
on red vinyl stools
or of alleyways shimmering
with a perpetual snowfall of pigeons
arranged moments one could live by.
But now, look how the butcher weeps
after calling the lamb over to him,
after slitting its throat.
Look how the window washers razor
white soap from the glass,
revealing a transparency so pure
they cannot peep inside.
And at the crossing
before the central bridge,
there's a red-tuniced officer,
his face chapped hard
as a falcon's from glaring into the wind,
who sends some across
and delays the rest
with the mere flick of his hand.

--Temple Cone

Temple Cone is an assistant professor of English at the U.S. Naval Academy and an award-winning poet who has published three chapbooks of poetry: Quandary Farm (Pudding House, 2007), A Father's Story (Pudding House, 2007), and Considerations of Earth and Sky (Parallel Press, 2005).