by Joyce Sidman
A single crow against the sky:
where do you wing your way, and why?
What message do you cry out shrill
to treetops cloaked in autumn’s chill?
With coal-black eyes and strutting feet,
what private councils will you greet?
What secret orders were you given?
What deeds to do? What plots to thicken?
What grand, colossal, crow-filled schemes
take shape in your collective dreams?
Copyright © 2010 Joyce Sidman. From the book Ubiquitous: Celebrating Nature’s Survivors. Houghton Mifflin Books for Children. Reprinted by permission of the author.
I love to watch crows, because it always seems like they’re up to something . . . and they probably are! Crows and their cousins (ravens, jays, for example) belong to the most intelligent family of birds, the Corvids. Learn more about them in my book, Ubiquitous: Celebrating Nature’s Survivors. Explore this book further at http://joycesidman.com/books/ubiquitous-celebrating/. And listen to another poem from this book here: http://joycesidman.com/books/ubiquitous-celebrating/joyce-reads-the-ants-from.html
Joyce Sidman is the author of many innovative children’s poetry books, including the Newbery Honor-winning Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night and two Caldecott Honor books, Song of the Water Boatman and Other Pond Poems and Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors. She also teaches poetry writing to schoolchildren and explores the woods and fields in her home state of Minnesota. Visit her website, www.joycesidman.com, to find book trailers, poetry ideas, and far too many photos of her dog, Watson.