At daybreak come the raucous crows and jackdaws yacketing
down from the wooded cliffs
and tall, tossed branches of their nightly stay straight to our beech trees and chimneys too.
In joyful disarray
they shout down rude comments
on a windy dawn
peer at curtained windows
telling us how to greet the day.
Only the ravens stay on high
solitary upon the escarpment’s sweep.
Mates in tow they take the air
and play in updrafts off the crags
swoop and interweave
the patterns of their flight
until at last they perch
upon a topmost bough
and stretch their necks
in honking chorus at the rising sun.