Crow Dreaming

And now it seems
Your crow has come to live with me.
Your incautious crow
That hops between vehicles on the busy road
Pretentiously kamikaze,
Or seeks conquest, outnumbered
In fraught flight with flocking gulls
Oh, crow, incautious crow
Your caw cawing,
Your hopping strutting gait,
Your deeply intelligent gleaming eyes
Invade my sleep and dreaming.
I am dismayed, my feather prince
At the transformation of your raucous calling
Into soft and trilling intonation,
Of pure undying love.
But then, I wake.
I gaze out of my window.
And see you, disheveled
Upon the roadside grass
Exuding loneliness
For now, voiceless in hunger.
While upon my windowsill, a gift.
One discarded blue black feather
Capturing the golden light
Of the early morning sun.

Trudie Shannon was born and brought up in Guernsey in the Channel islands. She started writing poetry aged nine and have never stopped. She has published two collections of work, Beside the Water and Between the Tides. She has performed her poems on BBC radio Guernsey and with ‘Echos’ a multi-arts collective in France.