Crows

I will become friends with crows.
I will share the bounty of my meals
with the avatars of night. When
I close my eyes, they will watch
over my body. When they alight in
groups in trees, on power lines
electrifying my road home, on carcasses
where they do the work
of releasing back to the land that
which is the land’s, I will see them
with my night-turned eyes, the eyes
that know when someone is watching,
hidden, from the shadows. The crows
will bring me trinkets, and I will turn
their gifts to monuments to a history
shared across species. I will meet them
on their own terms, and they will
meet me on mine. We will understand
each other, but not our understandings.