Crows

Painting by Mike Van


Crows

I heard the call of the crows,
Threw my shoes into the yuccas,
So I could feel the warm sand on my bare skin.
My feet sunken into sand,
Felt the language of the underground streams' dark waters.
I found new words,
Words that came from the water's dark hands caressing my ankles.
I spoke truth for the first time.


Crow's and Human Voices

I found words in the crows' dark sounds.
The human words I possessed
Put their hands over their ears.
I copied on paper
The words that came from the crow's dark sounds.
My words that came from human beings
Put their hands over their eyes.
Words that came from the crow's dark sounds,
Arose from the paper,
Flew above the highest mountain and touched stars.
The human words
I had gathered from other human voices,
Stumbled on crutches
On the wall to wall carpets in my brain.

Duane Locke

Posted over on The Write Gallery

Authors Notes:

"Crows"

Listening to crows frees us from the false
beliefs that society reveres and has imposed
on us so we will be weaklings like all social
beings. This poem is a celebration of
communication with the earth and a recovery
of strength and love that only a mystic union
with the earth can give.

"Crow's and Human Voices"

Anatole France once said something somewhat
similar to this:

When my cat makes a gesture or speaks, she means
the gesture and she speaks truth, while human beings
pretend and speak lies even when they ardently
believe they speak the truth.

A mood of this type is behind the poem.
I've always had an intense love of crows
and spent many moments listening to their crows,
and I feel listening to these crow sounds
inspires me to build a language of truth from
the language of lies spoken by people.