Why Crows Beat Gulls

Solstice 2012

Another beat closer to distant appreciation
Taken only by the odd prick of a camera
Phone. Growing deliberate so as not to break
The nice chat. The young curmudgeon cycles
Slower than the pure research product
Proven by a meeting where action points
The Way up a hill steeper than the doped
Competitors’. Race on.

The crow is more important than the seagull:
(Everybody knows this)
Nobler blue sheen, her eye more dangerous,
Expansive beat meditation, not promiscuous
Nor restless jostle nor footless wander –
Boot free, really, as we scatter through history –
Wondering why we went that way and not
This. Kronk.

Crane’s arc, melody to building, rising frame,
In turn, rhythm to the lift and weft of the yellow
Steel across the sky, a beat to the song of its birth year.
Julia mother made your revolution, and the years will make
Your use. I have only this sense, dear,
That plain speaking occurs to me only
On the final downstroke. Over the hill to a quiet
Fall. Say it.