far

Poetry

Neighborhood Murder

David Denny
issue six

---

October is the month
that changes everything
for our local crows—

the rest of the year
they are all harmless
clicks and rattles

from powerlines and
rooftops and fenceposts.
But October gets into 

their blood and they 
are all caws—four-five-six
brittle sawblades snarling

through woodknots. Crows
hate hawks the way
longshoremen hate crooked

union bosses, hectoring
them in gangs of three or four,
dive-bombing one after

another like the big-bellied
TV wrestlers of my childhood, 
in tag-team grudge matches,

leaping from the top rope
of the center ring onto
the broad backs of one 

Gorgeous George or another—
a futile but somehow noble
attempt to chase away 

the keystone species of our 
neighborhood skies. The young 
red shouldered hawk who patrols 

our yard and many others is 
not amused, but he is also 
not waylaid by such shenanigans.

October is his time to
lord over crowns of pine
and redwood, camphor and 

oak for their caches 
of busy squirrels stuffing their
cheeks with last-minute 

winter’s-comin’ acorns.
The crows sense the urgency
of the pumpkin-infused

landscape, cul-de-sac
upon cul-de-sac of
scattering rodents

and thinning shrubs—
every living thing darkening 
in October’s fading light.