I did an online yoga class this morning. The teacher is the sister of an old friend. I enjoyed her view into familiar poses. As we balanced in tree pose I studied my back deck and the beech tree beyond. I noticed not only the marigolds in my outdoor pots, but a crow balanced in a branch.

My Crow

A crow flew into the tree outside my window.
It was not Ted Hughes’s crow, or Galway’s crow.
Or Frost’s, Pasternak’s, or Lorca’s crow.
Or one of Homer’s crows, stuffed with gore,
after the battle. This was just a crow.
That never fit in anywhere in its life,
or did anything worth mentioning.
It sat there on the branch for a few minutes.
Then picked up and flew beautifully
out of my life.

–Raymond Carver, this poem appeared in All of Us: The Collected Poems by Raymond Carver, published by Vintage Books, 1996.