The Committee, by Ann Stanford
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Black and serious, they are dropping down one by one to
the top of the walnut tree.
It is spring and the bare branches are right for a conversation.
The sap has not risen yet, but those branches will always be
bare
Up there, crooked with ebbed life lost now, like a legal
argument.
They shift a bit as they settle into place.
Once in a while one says something, but the answer is always
the same,
The question is too--it is all caw and caw.
Do they think they are hidden by the green leaves partway
up the branches?
Do they like it up there cocking their heads in the fresh
morning?
One by one they fly off as if to other appointments.
Whatever they did, it must be done all over again.
From “The Descent” by Ann Stanford (Viking: 84 pp.) Copyright 1997 Reprinted by permission.