-This poem reflects on crows feeding in a harvested cornfield, where their sudden flight, rough calls, and weight upon a fence wire animate the exposed land after the harvest has passed.
The corn is cut to broken rows,
pale stalks stand sharp in morning frost,
and crows pass low above the field,
black strokes against the harvest gold.
They settle where the wagons passed
and probe the ruts for scattered grain;
one lifts, and thirty wings unfold,
a dark wave breaking from the ground.
The wind sends husks along the rows,
the gate chain strikes the cedar post,
their calls move east above the barn
and thin across the open fields.
By dusk, the crows crowd on the wire,
each body bent against the wind;
then one by one they leave for pines,
the wire lifts and gives one note.