A Blackened Sky

Clouds billowed thunderous grey
above charcoal stalks of heather.

Trees held their breath all wind-filled day,
browbeaten by the bullying weather.

As if by lightning strike, a leafless oak
exploded into jet-black blossoming:

a magnanimous murder of crows
broke from the darkness cawing,

burst into the blackened sky,
their sooty feathers spread and soaring.

Kim M. Russell, 13th January 2021

Murder of crows Stock Photos, Royalty Free Murder of crows Images | Depositphotos®

My response to Poets and Storytellers United Weekly Scribblings #52: Something About Mary

Rosemary is back with a Mary Oliver challenge and a poem chosen from Dreamwork. It’s called ‘Landscape’ and we are invited to choose a line or phrase and use it to inspire a new piece of our own writing. I chose the lines:

‘…the crows break off from the rest of the darkness
and burst up into the sky’

Free image found on depositphotos.com

32 thoughts on “A Blackened Sky”

  5. All we have up here on Vermont’s Canadian border, this time of year, is crows. Your wonderful work is photographic, and your photograph is an awesome complement to your masterful verse. Thanks for bringing us along, KR.

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  9. You’ve set up a wonderfully ominous mood that makes we wonder what else is lurking about in this landscape, and how it might make itself known. I have to say, it’s a pretty perfect metaphor for life around here.

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  14. I enjoyed reading this, Kim, it was fun to follow.. We have similar episodes with the Blackbirds, often the descend upon our smaller back yard, seems everyone of them has it’s own spot in the grass Hardly ever do we see a crow here in the Southeast Texas Gulf Coastal area..
    Sorry to be so late, we are having a hectic week, a son-in-law died Sunday morning.
    ..

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