To see the artwork and read the poetry it inspired, please visit Paul Brookes’ blog here.

Crow

On a branch, on a park bench,
a café terrace lit by streetlights,
night comes to engulf all things,

dousing the gleam of white blossom,
pale hands moving in conversational gestures,
bringing sleep or restlessness.

Only crow, suffused with the black
of aeons of space and bird-time,
remains whole, integral,

brooding on tomorrow, all our yesterday’s
tomorrows, the long dark furrows,
leading back from the first nest.