Ralph Stevens

Ralph Stevens lives in Ellsworth, Maine with his wife, the photographer, Sally Rowan. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and is the author of the collections At Bunker Cove (Moon Pie Press), Things Haven’t Been the Same (Finishing Line Press), and Water under Snow (Wipf and Stock: Resource Publications). He is a regular contributor to the online journal Verse Virtual; his poems have appeared in a variety of publications and on the radio programs, The Writer’s Almanac and Poems from Here.

Four and Twenty Black Birds

They flock onto the grass like
kids around the ice cream truck,
first one then a trio then,
suddenly,
two dozen or more.
And who’s to say that four and twenty
black birds are not kids at heart,
expecting something toothsome
outside my window?
They are, indeed,
black,
but what black signifies
cannot take much space
in a crow’s mind.
I know they know
I’m here and will –
if I go for a closer look –
be gone as one,
tuned as one mind
to all dangers, no matter how slight.
Things black to me,
the signs of fears I cloak in black,
beaked and croaking murder,
are no more to a crow
than neighbors, kinfolk, and the
chance to gather
for a few sweet morsels
on some guy’s lawn.