Tina Schumann

Just Yesterday the Crows

perched like punctuation 
in the cucumber trees, 
maybe thirty of them, 

prompted the question: 
what constitutes a murder? 
More than two? 

Turns out three—enough to eat
a dead knight, according to 
English folklore. 

Just this week, surveyors 
uncovered the skeletons
of three prehistoric children 

cuddling in a grave near Stonehenge—
two three-year-olds holding hands
and a twelve-year-old embracing them. 

They were interred with toys 
for the afterlife: a chalk drum, 
a clay ball, and a bone pin. 

How do I praise all that is 
gone too soon? Morning, 
noon, and night

the neighbor's garden gargoyles 
hold their stone faces 
in wonderment. 

Each buried in a hedge grove, 
they seem petrified
into stunned silence. 

At dusk my mind returns
to that huddle of children 
in a cemetery

said to be in use
for over a thousand years. 
Their families must have visited

in homage for as long 
as their lives allowed—believing
that time, like a murder of crows

circles in on itself 
and night comes 
for everyone. 

Back to Issue IX…