To a Crow

Krähe, wunderliches Tier,

Willst mich nicht verlassen?

[“Crow, you queer creature,

Won't you please let me be?”]

—Wilhelm Müller, “The Crow,” set by Schubert in his Winterreise (1828)

Hail to you, swart spirit,

  Bird you've always been

(Don't think I doubt it!)

Since, in the Miocene,

Seventeen million years ago, flapping on the scene,

 From lizardry you leapt,

  Smarter yet, and more,

With all your promise kept,

And that resounding caw.

We martial upright apes are greatly in your debt!

On Windy Ilion's plain:

  Horseman Hector dead,

The Greek and Dardan slain

  Bleeding ghastly red,

You cleared things up real quick—“Mr. Clean,” but years ahead!

On Cannae's battleground  

  Countless Romans dying,

Expiring all around,

   Were not by you left sound—  

Speedy's your middle name, the Carthaginians found!

Austerlitz’s butcher’s bill,

  Paris, Boney claimed,

Would in a night refill

  (Excluding, that is, the maimed).

Your cleanup once complete, no emperor complained.

The Somme and Stalingrad

  Both called upon your aid.

Bipedals had it bad,

  Old Clootie had it made!

Hell’s fires blazing bright, still crows were unafraid.

In this sampler of warfare

By generals of repute

The crows were always there,

Waiting patiently to loot

Sightless eyes—cadavers' wounded faces' fruit.

In Ukraine's Donbas today,

  Ravens diligent,

Dead die the hi-tech way,

  "Negotiations" spent.

For po-faced anthropophagites, those crows are heaven sent!

Saturday, August 16, 2025

Bittersweet Paparazzo

"Bittersweet Britespede rips twin, Abagail!"

The wonder is she lived to tell the tale.

I'd love to write up this steamy saga.

It'd leave New Yorker readers gaga

And turn even the paparazzi pale,

Could I some way reduce to words

The badness of the naughty birds.

They surely would be fun to nail!

Unfortunately, my dear old Lutheran muse

Tells me, in no uncertain terms, I must refuse:

Some things are too fierce to mention

Even with the very best intention!

Sprung from a line of pious pastors,

I'm bound to heed my saintly masters.

Wednesday, August 13, 2025

A Torus

Roaming in desolation’s veld.

I came across an antique kraal,

Rock-built, that had endured since Khoi

Who’d occupied that place, then gone,

Kept cattle there, before their fall.

In the rubble, an odd gray stone,

Roughly carved in a doughnut twist,

A torus, pierced by some old fist.

I snatched this up and took it home,

Path leading to infinity;

It’s daunting cherishing the new—

Best keep old things like this in view.

So take your pick and make your way!

Life, too, is an objet trouvé.

*Brakrivier, ca. 1950/51. Not the Great Brak but a small one of that name somewhere between De Aar and Britstown.

Tuesday, August 12, 2 025