After having moved and settled, I am finding my way back to poetry!
May this find you with birdsong nearby :)

Ode to the woman standing on the corner

holding her children’s hands,
a young boy and a younger girl,
all, looking at the sky,
which made me stop my car
and look up
and see
hundreds (thousands?!) of dark crows
among, against, with,
twilight.
What a beautiful word, beginning with
twi or two, of both worlds, day and night.

The birds flew against this in-betweenness,
defined by custard colored clouds
at a casting call,
pretending to be jellyfish.
There was also a spine, loose-
a spine with plump air discs
and feathers punctuated the scene,
brushing gold.

I loved the mother’s open neck and the thrust of her chin,
as if she could lift her little family
and join the bird journey,
to a raucous cozy roost in the distance.

I’ve lived at this apartment five months now,
moved away sentries of cedars.
I’ve bemoaned the loss of nature,
here, with cars roaring into the complex,
a starched collar of parking lot,
instead of the grass skirt
that once surrounded me.

But today,
my car pulled over against the
battalion of mailboxes,
turned back to the corner,
I wonder what else this mother sees
that I have missed,
and could this magnificence unfurl every evening?