‘He opens his throat for the crow’
(Matthew Hedley Stoppard)
Down the chimney
at dawn – crow caw.
Wings of night retract.
What does it wake me to
as sky is hearthed by morning
and my home warms slow?
Its meaning in my gullet,
I learn the way of crow,
that anything can be a tool,
how to get drunk off ants,
raucous mid-air row,
the roads I must cross
to the wasteland. You are there
on the perimeter, tearing at the sap-sore tree.
Nesting is a togethering. It hurts.
We spread our greying feathers,
count the clouds
and call for the coming.
Becky Cherriman is a Leeds-based writer, educator and performer who enjoys creative collaborations. Her poetry has been published by Seren, Mslexia, The North, Moving Worlds and Bloodaxe, in her pamphlet Echolocation and collection Empires of Clay www.beckycherriman.com.