Cardinal and Crow
I
Two cardinals and a murder
of crows distinctly chatting
between neighboring branches;
barren minus twisting auburn
vines slunk like somnolent tails,
and an occasional jostling squirrel.
Snow swallows hooves as a deer
herd leaps along my father’s fence.
II
True, a fence is like an hourglass:
flipped one way to keep in,
once emptied, will keep out
save a proper invitation.
True, the deer’s mass is intimidating
to an unarmed man.
True, the adroit squirrel, with all her nimbleness,
is seminal in flirtation; astonishing
celerity, caught only upon her
empyreal invitation.
True, vines can strangle native trees,
raping forests their elongated
growth; humans do it faster.
True, barren Earth is like a diseased
pubic region, operable
but void of takers.
True, neighbors are the delicate sauce
making an eating experience memorable,
but if soured, attach like leeches
carefully draining pleasure.
True, the crow, with all his august stature,
intimidates crumbling humans.
His mystique exceeds utility, becoming
the definition of contrast against snow.
True, the cardinal is the brightest
entity against the drab, monochromatic
landscape which, like an oozing
multilayered-cake, ascends
from an emanating white foreground
to ecstatic etchings of brush
blending into stern tree masts
splitting like cracked ice
the gray-plagued pallor sky.
III
Two Cardinals and the murder
of a pubescent seminarian;
never surfacing. Far in the Church’s
land, by the Father’s fence,
torpor crows observe a moment
between branches lingering
over freshly packed soil,
brushed with snow.