Cockcrow of the crows and a cockatoo

There are city dwelling birds

that are not your common stool pigeons.

The ravens occupy the east

side of the tracks.

The gulls guard the windy west.

On garbage day they all rise early

not for worms in the green box holes-

they know the small fries

are at the bottom of paper bags.

We had a murder

before our pine tree was felled

from illness. Yet, like serial flyers,

they moved to another pine,

preferring needles and sap

to the plethora of palms;

mexican fan, kintia, canary, 

the King and Queen and the Phoenix.

The ravens also get dates,

taking them out to 

happening intersections

and drop them so they 

get cracked by cars,
rolling through

while the fair gulls glide along

bellies filled with stale soft bread-

And I remember good old Fred.

Taken in and taught by those

crows

how to

blend in seamlessly-though he's a cockatoo.

They fly as one flock

rise and cockcrow,

the gulls sneer and squawk.

The city birds are not blind

deaf or dumb, 

winged with wayward choice

The murder

doesn't mind

one more white bird

or a cock or two. 

Image By Liftarn (Traced from Image:Odin's ravens right.PNG) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.