Forty crows
A poem by Chris Dahl 

Forty crows

sweep into my apple tree,
forty black appetites.
Every apple we pick carries a wound.

By evening the ghost
of that great bird we call the moon
migrates through a smoke-filled dusk.

Shall I take these moments for ideograms?
What says the I Ching?
It is inevitable
that someone I love will die this winter.

Forty grim questions.
Thievery and mayhem.
A clouded future—
but with windfalls
good enough for cider.

About the Author:

Chris Dahl hopes to cup a handful of murky pond-water  and reveal another world half-hidden in this one  Her chapbook, Mrs. Dahl in the Season of Cub Scouts, was published after winning Still Waters Press “Women’s Words” competition.  Her poems have been placed in a wide variety of journals—most recently in Cirque and About Place Journal—and she has had poems nominated both for Best of the Internet and a Pushcart Prize.  She lives in Olympia, Washington where she serves on the board of the Olympia Poetry Network and edits their newsletter. 

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