Sometimes a single moment in everyday life lingers long after it has passed. A few weeks ago, while walking through a shopping centre I often visit, I watched a raven trapped inside – swooping between the ledges beneath tall glass windows, seemingly confused by the transparency of the walls. Ravens and crows are highly intelligent birds, which somehow made the image all the more unsettling. That moment stayed with me, becoming the seed for this poem, Crow in a Cage of Windows.
The more I watched the crow, the more I reflected on the strange collision between nature and our constructed spaces, and the quiet parallels that emerge when we stop to observe. City life often feels like watching nature from behind reflections, screens, and panes of glass.
This poem is my attempt to capture that feeling, from the perspective of the crow, as I reflect on the question of where freedom truly lies…
Crow in a Cage of Windows
When will I see such beauty,
Such patience,
When I feel the aching presence
Of an absence.
I long for some disclosure,
For reason
In a world of such resentment –
Such torture
And violence.
I’m mourning
The death of my fulfillment –
My hope for
That gleaming wholesome future,
Free of hatred
And of torture.
Please don’t shame me for my faith in
The Spirit,
And reason.
I’m a crow in cage
Of windows
Cloaked in billboards.
Please leave me in the darkness
With my thoughts and
Shattered niceness,
So deserted
In this image
Of an English Dream
In green and pleasant
Land of freedom, hope
And pastures pure
That in time,
Much to my sadness,
Will be nothing more
Than the remnants
In an ashtray.
My world is disaffected,
I exist in
A vacuum,
I’m a crow in a cage
Of windows,
No billboards.
I’m left in the pleasant sadness
Of darkness
Of faith and
My conscience,
Where I may find such beauty,
Such patience.
When I no longer feel the aching presence
Of an absence –
The broken wing
Of a crow
In a cage
Of shattered windows.
Logan Darkwoods 