When my grandmother died,

they came to the fence

five crows, lined up like sentries

on the rotted wood,

heads cocked, watching.

My uncle muttered about omens,

spat twice to ward off death.

But they weren’t there for warning.

They waited while we buried her,

waited as if they understood

what silence meant in a house

that used to sing.

One landed on the shovel.

Another picked a thread

from my dress.

We stood there, too tired to chase them,

too raw to care.

I remembered how she used to feed them,

cracked corn in a chipped blue bowl,

left out by the garden.

“Smart birds,” she’d say,

“Smarter than we are, most days.”

They brought her things in return:

a safety pin,

a marble,

a coin black with years.

She kept them in a box for safe keeping.

“They remember kindness,”

she told me once,

“and cruelty too.

They don’t forget a face.”

Now they looked straight at me,

like they knew

who was missing.

Grieving her too.

People call them grim,

curse-coloured,

scavengers.

Say they feed on what’s gone wrong.

But they were:

gentle,

wary,

faithful.

They mate for life.

They bury their dead.

They teach their children

who to trust,

and who to fear.

I wonder if they tell stories of us:

the loud ones,

the careless ones,

the ones who throw away

what could still be useful.

That night, I left the same blue bowl out,

filled with corn,

and a walnut,

just to see.

In the morning,

a screw lay in its place:

gleaming,

like a tiny monument

to what survives.