Sometimes a casual conversation will yield a memory that will last forever. In the case I am about to mention, I was listening to my uncle share a story from his childhood. Like most of his stories, there’s always a swift, clean moral, and the stories are told with a gentleness and sagacity that only my uncle can muster. He told me a story about a crow, and that prompted me to write a poem that I now share with all of you. It is simply titled ‘Crow’, and it’s been medicine for my tired soul. I hope it deals its healing magic to a few of you out there too:

A small-town boy of only ten,
With dirty hands and heart wide open,
Found a friend in feathers, dark as night—
A crow named ‘Inkspot’, quick and bright.
When morning mist lay on the grass,
The yellow bus would come to pass.
But Inkspot wouldn’t stay behind,
He had a loyal, bird-like mind.
Miles of road, over a dusty track,
With Inkspot soaring o’er his back,
He followed Philip on his way,
To guard the schoolhouse every day.
But shadows fell on wood and wire,
A sudden flash of hidden fire;
Upon a pole, a curious peck,
A bolt of light, a broken neck.
The sky went quiet, the bus rolled on,
But the shadow in the air was gone.
Beside the road, where silence kept,
My ten-year-old Uncle bowed and wept.