It's Still Life

That Summer of Crows

I was ten.
I was smaller then.
The world was smaller, and
that made everything bigger.

Made the sky bigger.
Made the old oak bigger
than sky, and when I stood
under that tree, clouds
disappeared into its leaves,

into its shadows. It was wind-
flicked and dry as old books.
And some days, I’d lay myself
under that tree, watching
crows sit on telephone lines.

Grandpa died later that year,
but for now, I owned my summers,
and I spent hours watching
those sooty-black crows
weightless as a shadow.

written for Poetic Bloomings: July 8 “That Summer“