Crow! Poem by David Lewis Paget

The wind was swaying the treetops as
I cut across from the church,
The sun had darkened behind the clouds
When I saw the crow on its perch,
Its feathers fluttered, it looked quite grim
As it sat there, quite on its own,
But watching me with a beady eye
From the top of a blank headstone.

I pulled the collar around my ears
And hunched in my overcoat,
The wind was bringing a bitter chill
To whip at my face and throat,
I staggered over and off the path,
Walked over the headstone plot,
And felt a shiver run down my spine
To wonder what time she’d got.

The crow had uttered a single ‘caw’
From the depths of its blue-black beak,
Then spread its wings like an avatar
And lashed a gash in my cheek,
I stumbled off, I could feel the blood
As it ran, from under my eye,
And hurried home, though I flung a stone
At the crow as it flew on by.

But Rachel stood at the window as
I came in the gate, at last,
She saw the blood, and she put her hand
On up to her mouth, aghast.
I told her it was a minor cut
A thorn on a rose that waved,
She shuddered, flooded her eyes with tears,
Said, ‘Someone walked on my grave! ’

‘Someone walked on my grave, ’ she said
‘Not even an hour ago…’
My mind went back to the headstone, and
The evil glare of the crow.
‘You’re overwrought, you should sit and rest,
Get warm, for the room is dank, ’
But all I could see in my mind just then
Was a headstone that was blank.

I’d taken her from a cruel home
For her parents both were dead,
She’d been brought up by a grandmother
Who was violent, sick she said.
She’d threatened me when we went away
That she’d not be long my bride,
And Rachel never felt safe with me
‘Til her grandmother had died.

I managed to catch the warden when
I saw him, late in the week,
‘Why is that headstone blank? ’ I said,
‘Whose is the grave you keep? ’
‘There’s no-one buried under that stone,
It was raised for a future soul,
A woman came in the driving rain
And paid for that grave with gold.’

‘But surely you have a name for her
In the graveyard book; you’d know.’
He knitted his brow, and thought aloud:
‘I think that her name was Crow!
She dressed in black, in a mourning gown
With a cloak that looked like wings,
Then vanished, as she had first appeared
When I turned to ask her things.’

I passed the stone on the way back home,
And I stared, my mouth ajar,
For someone had cut a letter there
In the face of the stone, an ‘R’,
I thought of Rachel, hurried on home
But was late, too late I know,
For flying past as I reached the gate
Was the dread form of the crow.

It crashed straight into the window where
My Rachel stood and stared,
Dressed in black, in a mourning gown
It was just as I had feared.
The window smashed as the crow had crashed
With shards of glass all round,
The crow embedded in Rachel’s throat
As she choked her last on the ground.

She lay with both of her arms outstretched
Like a pair of wings in black,
The bird ripped open her jugular,
She wouldn’t be coming back.
I knew she’d hated her grandmother,
She remembered every blow,
But didn’t think she’d be coming back
Though her maiden name was ‘Crow! ’

19 May 2014