Few care about this pragmatism, this ordinariness
that spends summer days on end in the back of closets
until a chiller wind whips in squalls and out of nowhere
you are on a city street with the only person you can imagine
sharing with, an uneven compromise of broad shoulders
and slim expectations or steps bumbled in fear of falling
and his hand is so much bigger than yours. If
this were a seesaw, you’d wonder if it is play,
a tug and release, let me take care of you instead
of taking care of myself so wholeheartedly that I let go
or diminish myself so our ceiling is higher and broader
and perhaps darker under the onslaught of showers. 
 
What you also know is that umbrellas are precarious;
they turn inside out and ribs poke through the vulnerable
spaces. Sharp. A latch breaks and the expected upside
falls down like a veil and you no longer see everything
as you should, muddled in a furled drapery. The friend
goes another way, steps into the Uber going uptown
and you are most certainly downtown. Too much rain
is falling to leave semi-useful behind and yet you do,
mindfully declaring the broken as discard, seeking
the trash can that will swallow the thing whole 
until you can find the shop that sells another one – 
perhaps purple with bright gold stars.
                        

The caption asserted wild, those crows,
that the ancient stone bridge spanned a stream 
near Prague, and that the man had fed
these beauties bits of corn and bread 
for years, and their parents before them. 
 
I can’t place where I saw the photo. 
The image won’t fade. Found
when I practiced calling crows to snacks
on my mailbox and within weeks two flew
down the street from lamppost to tree
to follow my car home from the grocery. 
The next spring they brought their red-throated 
baby, and perhaps an aunt and uncle. All five.  
I never was able to feed them by hand.
 
His photo flashes back to me
when I write a poem that feels
more like twelve feet of gray yarn on the floor 
than a sequence of words that nudge open a door. 
 
I don’t think his back bent from hours
he leaned toward the crows as they settled
at the stone wall. He was old with patience.  
His black fedora may or may not 
have covered a bald spot. Perhaps
he mimicked the Raven Masters
at the Tower of London who wait 
hand lifted, cupped for black corvids.
 
That’s the poet’s gesture. To be present 
over and over, to accept wild trust
in a worthy offering.