Pied Crow
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1911: Tamanrasset, Hoggar, Algeria
At dawn, before my clockcalls me to toil, pied crow arrives,jitters the thatch, pecks my roof-beam,wakes me from dreams of foodstuffs:gifts of bread I cannot eat, my mouth
sewn shut, a rumble that mayor may not be potatoes galumphingdown a wooden chute. Pied crowthrashes the reeds for an insect,a shiny bit, a seed-speck. What use?
The ground is iron that I cannot sow.The Tuareg language evades me,on my parched tongue becomespied crow’s bark, not human speech.Pied crow scritches, again stirs
the reeds, and I know all my laborsas fruitless, vanities, clutchingat the wind. Be that as it may,I choose for my morningfodder a mouthful of praise:
for pied crow’s glossy black wings,black head, and snowy vestments.And for the clock’s hammer(striking its tiny wire coil)like the chambered heart
that drums beneath my breastbone.And the goodness of this hand [End Page 247] rubbing my weary neck. All thingsmade for our use, our conversion,our wonderment. [End Page 248]
William Kelley Woolfitt teaches creative writing and American literature at Lee University in Cleveland, TN. He is the author of a book of poetry, Beauty Strip (Texas Review Press, forthcoming), and a fiction chapbook, The Boy with Fire in His Mouth (Fiction Southeast, 2014). His poems and stories have appeared in many journals, including Shenandoah, Michigan Quarterly Review, Threepenny Review, and River Styx. These poems belong to a larger collection, Charles of the Desert (Paraclete Press, forthcoming), a book-length sequence about the life of Charles de Foucauld. wwoolfitt@leeuniversity.edu
