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Poems from the Threshold of Nature and Modern Life - by John Grey

The Crow Speaks

I’m two steps down a forest trail
and the crow sounds the alarm
from high in the canopy.

I stare up in search of the bird
that somehow figures me for a threat
to every living thing in the woods.

He’s there, on a branch,
large and satiny black, 
maybe an ounce or two short 

of being a raven. And he looks 
down at me, beak and eyes 
coordinated in the crow’s 

most forceful expression  
in its repertoire.  “I know who
you are,” it says silently. 

“I know what you’re doing 
here. But I’m on high alert.
You won’t get away with it.”

As the cliché would have it,
I’m here to commune with nature.
But crows, like everything else

here, don’t commune. 
From birth to death,  they’re pledged
to their own survival.

The crow’s message is clear.
This is not where you belong.
Go survive elsewhere.

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About The Poet

John Grey is an Australian poet and US resident, recently published in New World Writing, City Brink, and Tenth Muse. His latest books, “Subject Matters”,” Between Two Fires” and “Covert” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Hawaii Pacific Review, Amazing Stories, and Cantos.

Find him on:
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Read On

Moved by the crow's warning? Venture deeper. In four additional poems, John explores the liminal spaces where nature meets technology and where solitude meets connection. Through late-night TV reflections, nervous dinner preparations, unflinching self-examination, and the gentle acceptance of love's transience, these verses illuminate the quiet truths we find when we dare to look closely at our modern lives.

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