Along the cracking pavement, there hopped;
with slight and steady ravenous hunger,
a darkened crow,
not normal in size.
Picking at the seeds, between the cracks, while catching my eye and not knowing why.

He made not a sound, beside his beak.
Striking at the rock with hopeful sight,
pecking and hopping from here to there
as I stared with contempt,
a hatred
for birds such as these who darken doors
like clouds over graves and lonely moors.
I followed this bird with watchful eyes
thoughts of the macabre behind my lids
a hateful disdain for what I judged.

I couldn't be sure what caused this hate
This heat in my blood for such a beast.
Perhaps the black in ruffled feather,
or ominous signs they tend to bring?
Perhaps I'd seen in forgotten dreams
Shadows such as these, feasting away
with eyes full of hell and gleaming flame
on corpses of children, scattering the steeets.

Or battles of old, with dying men,
these morbid creatures flying above,
gasping in fright with last weary breaths.
I searched for reason but merely found questions, still watching the bird with aging beak.

I tell you this tale, because just then,
While pondering on this ghastly fiend,
he stopped at his task and gazed at me.
I assumed he'd simply turn his head
a curious glance to say the least,
but his eyes, they gazed, straight into mine
a curious staring in their darkness,
puzzling my thoughts with so strange a bird...

Suddenly, without breaking the stare,
he closed the distance between us both
and hopped on my leg, landing so soft.
while never ending his silent gaze.
I couldn't move a single muscle,
shock in behavior I'd never seen.
It seemed as though time had ran its  course,
in perhaps the lifetime while we stared.
What seemed a dark demeanor from afar
appeared calm and peaceful on my knee, as if he'd heard my chiding thoughts.

The hatred in my mind started to fade
a useless ticket for which I'd paid.
If birds could smile, I'd swear he would
and nod his head in understanding.
Instead he merely opened his beak and dropped in my hand a tiny seed
then opened his wings and flew away.
vanishing silently through the trees.

I could not move and I could not speak
The fleeting shadow had made me weak.
I lifted my palm, this lasting gift.
A single seed, from a darkened crow
that taught me a lesson I needed to know.