[In addition to the poems featured in our chapbook, we are pleased to present work from Indiana writers on the Human/Nature theme.
Read more about the chapbook here.]
Crow
Julie Stewart
I stopped my van at the base of the hill before turning to drive alongside the lake. I drove slowly, keeping an eye out for pedestrians and bikers, kids coming up from the beach. I kept one hand on the wheel. My other arm lay crooked over the open window. Casually, I looked left and said, “Are you okay?”
Without thinking, I had spoken to a crow standing between the road and the lake.
It watched me with one glassy black eye but did not fly away.
I pulled my van over and crossed to where the crow stood. With its right eye, the bird watched me approach, its head listing toward the left. Its feet were planted firmly, its wings close to its body.
I squatted down beside it.
I asked again, “Are you okay?”
The bird did not move, not even flinch.
All summer I had been watching crows, fascinated, wishing I could see one up close, touch its velvet-looking head.
I returned to my car for the old red towel I’d used to wipe rainwater off my seats, having left the window open the previous night.
When I came back, the crow still had not moved.
I wrapped the towel around the creature. I placed my hands on either side of its body and picked it up. I was immediately reminded of lifting a small child out of the bath, the nubby softness of the towel, the solid feel of a body that looked frail. I carried it to my van and lay it on the passenger seat.
Only two days before, I had stopped in this exact spot to help a woman who had fallen from her bike. Her husband had been riding a few feet ahead. She had lost her balance and tried to stop her fall with her hands, but her face had hit the pavement. She had risen, clutching her hand to her mouth and chin, blood seeping through her fingers. Her husband had dropped his own bike to the ground and back to help her.
Three other people had stopped to help: me and two fisherman walking up from their dock. One of them, a man missing his front teeth, went into his cottage and came out with a wad damp paper towels, folded like the washcloths my mother used to hold to my forehead after I had vomited. The woman placed the towel over her mouth. I offered to drive them home. Her husband nodded, wanting to accept my offer, but she said, no, she was fine. They climbed back on their bikes and I watched in my rearview mirror as they pedaled toward town on this same road where I now drove with an injured bird in the seat beside me.
No one but me stopped for the crow.
My daughter was getting off work and would be waiting for me to pick her up. The crow did not move, but it was alive. From its seat next to me, I could see one eye flicking back and forth. I had no plan, no thought of what to do.
I drove the mile into town, me talking, the bird silently giving me side glances, until I reached the Cool Cat Ice Cream Shop.
I sat in the van watching my daughter wipe down glass cases and count money from the tip jar then split it with her co-worker. All the while, I talked to the crow.
“Are you okay?”
“Hang in there.”
“She’s almost finished.”
When Ellie came out, I said through the open window, “Don’t be scared, but I rescued a bird.”
To her teenage credit, she did not roll her eyes. I came around to the passenger side and lifted the bird from the front seat and lay it in rear cargo hold where I stashed grocery bags and my daughter’s cello. She got in and we headed toward home.
When the bird started to flop around in the back, I pulled over. My daughter told me to bring the bird up front, so I gathered it up again, rearranging the towel, and carried it to her.
I still had no plan.
Ellie suggested we call her older sister, who is trained in Wildlife Rescue and volunteered the previous summer at a bird rehabilitation center.
Rachel answered on the first ring—Hey Mamma—and we told her about the crow. She said that unfortunately, there was not much we could do, something about the bird’s brain being connected to its eyes and the way its head leaned to the side was a bad sign. Our crow was probably permanently disoriented.
The crow was growing quieter. Its one eye that had been open and watching me was now closed. The Crow was breathing, but barely.
Ellie cradled the bundled bird.
We drove up the hill to the top of Lake Drive. Just before the road turned sharply toward the highway, we spied a cluster of wildflowers, mostly orange ditch lilies and purply-pink sweet peas. I pulled my van to the side of the road, put it in PARK and went around to the passenger side. I opened the door and took the crow from my daughters extended arms.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I can’t help it, so I’m going leave it where it can die peacefully.”
Up to this point, I had not actually touched the bird. Now I gave in to the desire I’d had all summer while watching the crows eat French fries tossed into the road and be chased from other birds’ nests and caw endlessly from the tops of trees. I reached out with two fingers to stroke the crow’s head.
Velvet, just as I had imagined.
I took one step into the center of the cluster of flowers that was perhaps six feet wide and maybe three feet across. I lay the bird, still bundled in the old red towel, on the ground.
Back to Human/Nature writing.
Read more about the Human/Nature chapbook here.