The Dead Crow Poem by Patti Masterman

The Dead Crow

Rating: 3.8


When I was a child
I visited my cousin Judy's house,
I was spending the night with her,
As children like to do.
But something horrible
Was waiting there for me, something
I never expected to find.

It was a dead crow,
Fastened- perhaps nailed
To the top of a tall post.
But I had good, young eyes, to see it with.
In my imagination, it was placed there
While still living, and left to starve slowly,
And die of thirst, and then- even to rot-
With never a kind hand, to ease it's dreadful agony.

The crow haunted all my dreams;
Why did it have to die
In so unlovely a way?
What could a simple crow have done,
To merit such torture at the hand of a man?
And how could my cousin stand to see it each day?
Obviously she had blocked it from consciousness.

But worst of all, the crow was innocent, to my mind;
A simply thinking creature, and the thought
Of the crow wondering why he was a prisoner,
Waiting to die on the unseemly top of a fence,
In all weathers, with no shade
From either rain or sun or wind, and no privacy left to his dying,
Was more painful than either the fact of his death,
Or his possible suffering.

I am older now and understand things
That a child's mind could never grasp.
Crows eat corn, and probably this one
Was shot dead, with his craw still full of it-
And hung up then, to scare his buddies off.

They say if you ever shoot at a Crow
In a field, you will never see another one there.
Or the crow might have died
From natural causes, and only in death
Was made to serve as a warning of sorts.

I did not have the bravery to ask back then
How a crow had gotten himself into such a mess,
For perhaps I would be the next to be hung-
Maybe impertinent questions
Were the unforgivable sin of the day?
How could you trust such a man to even answer truthfully?

Now I realize how clever a plan it was
To hoist a dead crow upon a light post
To try and save a crop, or some feed grain.
All these years later, I can forgive the man
(Though he is long dead, as dead as the crow was.)

As a child, I could not have understood
That some day, I would understand all of it.
And now the things that trouble my sleep
Seem much more important and fearsome,
Than even an innocent dead crow,
Displayed on the top of a light pole.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Hans Vr 22 July 2011

Very interesting story, Patty. I like also the end, when you come to understand and have forgiven the man. And then you refer to the things that keep you from sleeping today, implying that one day you will understand them as well. Fantastic perspective.

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