Crows in the Fall

come floating across the gray of a cold sky like ashes from a chimney fire

lit by early-changing leaves.
Each year, we say, there are more crows.

They sail high, and their voices come down like charcoal falling in a grate, the sound

grating against the smooth curling
of water on driftlogs, rounded stones.

The restless water of the Sound reflects their flight, silvered waves tarnished

with mirror-specks. The crows drift, dark motes moving across the evening-filtered light.

This is how the long night comes: wing
after sooty wing extinguishing the sky.

 
by Carolyn Maddux

Carolyn Maddux is a reporter for the weekly newspaper in Shelton, Washington and is completing her Master of Arts in creative writing at Antioch University's McGregor School. She teaches creative writing at Olympic College Shelton. Her work has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Blue Unicorn, Rain and elsewhere, including the University of Iowa Press workshop anthology The Writing Path. She writes book reviews for Antioch Review, and her first book of poetry, Remembering Water, was published in 1996 by Bellowing Ark Press in Seattle. 'Crows in the Fall' was first published by Alaska Quarterly Review