by Eleanor Brown Steele
Hurricane of feathers
crows storm in. They
heed the rallying cry
to the tops of pines.
What threat makes
them dive with shrieks
so fierce they shake
the forest?
The bombarded pines
seem not to notice,
but two bulky clouds
are hooked
by this public display –
this proclaiming of enemy,
this marking of avian borders.
My friend David tells me
about the book he’s reading,
about how we humans
are biologically designed
to defend and fight
to the end.
I tell him I won’t read it.
But I will ask these crows
what their take is
on the West Bank,
on Iraq. Where did
they stand
at Little Bighorn?
Eleanor Brown Steele holds an MFA from the University of Maine's Stonecoast Creative Writing Program. Her poems have appeared in the Puckerbrush Review, Earth First! Journal, Potpourri, Modern Haiku and Pudding Magazine. She was recently awarded a St. Boltolf Foundation Award for distinction in poetry. The hightlight of her week is teaching poetry to fifth grade students on Peaks Island, Maine.
