what holds (us
Posted by Daniela Elza on Nov 05 2010
Today five crow.d poems got released in The Crowd issue of qarrtsiluni. It is good to see these crows out there, especially when my crow manuscript is doing its rounds with publishers.
During the first part of the year I had a crow regularly land in the gutter above the kitchen window, while I was working on the crow manuscript. This crow started coming at 5am in the morning and pecking so loud that s/he will wake me up early early. I had mixed feelings about all this, so did nothing. Mostly enjoyed this visitation as a kind of encouragement. Get up. Get the crows done and send them out. Until my neighbour (in a friendly chat on the roof deck) asked me if I am feeding that crow, and how she is so tired of being woken up. Literally, tired. We then had a long conversation (over a glass of wine, under the summer setting sun) about how we can discourage Roger (yes, he acquired a name in this conversation) from pecking at the gutter so loudly in the morning that it sounded like he was taking the house apart. Seriously, that is exactly what it sounded like. What I thought when I heard it the first time. It was like someone was trying to break in, without caring how loud it was.
We came up with some more pleasant and less pleasant ways to do this. I got worried about the poor crow (whose presence I now truly believed was my fault). So, I put my mind to work and kept telling Roger to keep away, while also physically shooing him away a few times. That is all it took.
A couple of times shoo shoo, but mostly before I went to sleep I wished Roger will not be back the next morning. (I did wear earplugs, just in case). And he did not came back. Was this my mind at work? Or was this one smart crow that got the message: stop this ruckus at 5am?
There is my crow story. I miss Roger, and think of him fondly.
Watch for the next call for submissions from qarrtsiluni. It will be up soon.