Why envy the crows?
but I do
I saw them once
returning to some hidden spot
within the chaotic rise
of unnamed hills
a staccato of black bodies
angling above the last trace
of the suburbs, where
sparse houses sprawl
along a country road
like jagged teeth.
They know where the land takes over
where rural yards turn wild
arcing into the hillside’s curved neck
where bears stumble down
lured by careless souls
and their unprotected garbage
where adventurous hikers disappear,
and sometimes don’t return
That place
where the crows go
may be the last bit
of hard-scrabble, untamed wilderness
in this entire cultivated country
It welcomes them in kinship
gliding like bits of dark shadow
into the fold of the ridge