Migrating Crows Miss Halloween by a Few Days, Shaya Bock

I heard them fly in

Some recent morning,

Their black masses

Undulating into the trees,

Cawing at each other brashly,

In disagreement over the time of day;

What the hour was.

Yesterday was daylight savings, ya see?

And the crows had forgotten, or at least

They didn’t know.

We’ve agreed to set back our clocks and watches,

But they haven’t clocks nor watches,

Nor could they think to ask

For an answer as to why we set ours back.

And I wonder if that’s the reason

The murder came to town;

Just to pick through the waning grass

And leaves hiding, by chance,

A roadside Reese’s piece

Or are they simply here

for the time?

Anyhow they are waiting now, below the trash,

To be given orders, or food, or the time.

The static silence between cawed commands

From a crow atop the trash bin,

Controls the other birds

With his foot on the lid.

The crow smacks his arms to his side,

Knocking open that inquiry for which they search

The refuse knowledge of unlapsed best by dates,

And newspaper clippings of weather forecasts,

Trying to align date, time,

rain and shine.

Even with their anecdotal peeking through

Of open blinds, they can’t seem to discern

Whether the clocks are right set forward or back;

A conceptual lack of laziness and prudence.

Amid the bustle and caws, bells sound from the church

Clock towers — which they seemed to understand

The count and context of — as the mass,

Airborne, unifies in undulating

Their disdain for daylight savings.