crow poem, for my son

a film ekphrasis: The Birds, by Alfred Hitchcock, 1963

Melanie (Tippi Hedren) waits outside the Bodega Bay school while the children inside sing 'Risselty Rosselty'

I took another walk with master Hitchcock.

the birds
for Leon
(with a line from Dylan Thomas) 

You’ll be thirty-six this year 
which is why . . . on my walk 
although I pass by your old school
now years shuttered 
but for a museum I heard about
occupying an old classroom
so that your school now is basically 
a museum inside a museum . . . 

though I see a lone crow 
perched quietly atop 
the quiet old monkey bars  
in the playground
where you once played
and I think of the scene
in Hitchcock’s The Birds
where one four ten crows
alight on the monkey bars
growing to a multitude 
with all the birds of Bodega Bay 
even playful sparrows chickadees
transformed into deadly raptors 
teeming like bees . . . 

though I am then 
drawn back to reality
the time on my walk 
two crows again and again 
swept down from 
branches power lines
frenzied wings flapping 
furiously at my head
chasing me two blocks
down the street . . . 

   I don’t shudder
   I don’t tremble
   nor lament 

because when 
the apocalypse stalks 
seeking its possessions 
I just think this year 
you my boy 
will be thirty-six  
   it’s a new season
   for fledglings 
and the birds
shall have no dominion



*last line: from Dylan Thomas’ "And death shall have no dominion"