Tag: crows

Gift of Crows by Adam Haver

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Gift of Crows

Forty years with crows,
throwing kernels and
not looking back as they

caw. Time is only forward,
staccato, so we lunge
ahead with the sound,

but the bright night of
birds, this murder din,
will always recall you.

*

Adam Haver’s writing has been featured in Popshot Quarterly, Poetry Scotland, Ballast, and other journals. He received the 2022 Willie Morris Award for Poetry and an award from the Utah Division of Arts & Museums for a collection of poems addressing wolf conservation. You can connect with him on X: @ac_haver.

Nebraska by Robert Okaji

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Nebraska

What have we crumpled and tossed
into the trashcan across the blacktop

if not decades of forfeited days
and those broken-feathered

regrets pinned under glass. Groaning,
incapable of elegance, still I long

to be those undulating grains by
the roadside in the great between.

Crows caw out of sight as I pump
gas and watch your hair blowing

in the angled light. Sing me your
favorite birdsong. Whisper the cloud’s

name. Tomorrow we’ll dream in Iowa
of corn that is not just corn, but

the emblem of that junction between
innovation and form, function and all

that blisters under the sun’s unforgiving
eye. I want to infiltrate each kernel,

peer through the veiled yellow-white,
recover sweetness, flatten the curve.

*

Robert Okaji is a displaced Texan seeking work in Indiana. He once owned a bookstore, served as a university administrator, and most recently bagged groceries for a living. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in As Above So Below, Slippery Elm, Atlanta Review, Vox Populi and elsewhere.