Crow City

by Maureen Teresa McCarthy
 
Light shimmers
Shadows flare 
Ghostly ribbons
Beyond my window
            Crows                                                                                  
Soaring wing to wing
Dark shining as night sky
Settling on bare trees
Plump rich winter berries
Close community
Stalking ground proud
Calls loud tossing heads
Stars in a dark eye
Young are tended
Old are not exiled
All ride the wind                                                                           
 
Murder of crows?
Unkindness of ravens?
                                                           
Earthbound as we are
Strangers to each other
We name them so.           

Water Wheel

by Maureen Teresa McCarthy

Gray gulls lift and glide
Wings spread
Floating on winter winds
Easily as on water.
White against gray sky
Song silenced
They sink to earth
Where fields of winter wheat
Harvested
Are golden as the beaches
They call home.

Water birds, shore birds
Riders of the great streams
Swimmers in the endless waters
Which churn our days away
Yet hold this fragile earth
This finite place
In endless space.