Crow Speaks from the Side of the Highway
I’m good at knots.
I like green pepper and Kentucky fried bones
and bingo. The risk
of numbers. Daubing
coloured felts on newsprint.
The sound. Smoky excitement.
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I like glittery things.
I like glittery things in gravel.
I like dead things in gravel at the side of the highway.
Hubcaps with insects glued on.
Bits of snake.
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Muffin cups. I love blueberry muffin cups.
Cigarette butts.
I like the mix of jewels and bugs.
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I like things the way they are. Bitter.
Lemon rind,
fishbone a week old.
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People revile me.
They say I’m no lady. No manners.
Say I kill baby birds.
Scavenge.
-
Hey, a gal does some good,
cleans up the environment, recycles -
and they’re ready to stone you.
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I like who I am.
I wasn’t born to porcelain.
I rattle a few teacups, make noise.
Good for a woman to make some noise.
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My one regret is not making it into myth.
Almost but no cigar.
That raven flapping around,
making BIG noise, butting into line -
she scored all the tricks,
the interesting vocalizations,
the throat singing.
-
Where in the world did Raven learn throat singing?
Selections of Cornelia Hoogland’s Cuba Journal (Black Moss Press, 2003) as well her second and third books of poetry, You Are Home (Black Moss Press, 2001) and Marrying the Animals (Brick Books, 1995), as well as Crow (2007), and Gravelly Bay (2008), were all shortlisted for the CBC’s Literary Awards.
