Migration

Crows assemble in the bare elm above our house.

Restless, staring: like souls

who want back in life.

            —And who wouldn’t want again

            the hot bath after hard work,

            with soft canyons of splitting foam;

            or the glass of spring water

            cold at the mouth?

            To be startled by beauty—drops of bright

            blood on the snow.

            To be radiant.

All morning the crows watch me in the garden

putting in the early onions.

Their bodies look oiled.

Back in, back in,

they shake the wooden rattles.