A Trio of American Crows

sat on a skeletal tree, at times nervously glancing in different directions, at others bobbing and rocking like a silent barbershop trio, until suddenly and for no reason I could determine, they cawed, as if at the cold wind scudding clouds across the sky.

I could not help thinking of a Gorey illustration or of a scherenschnitte silhouette or of a poem:

The Crow
by Kaelum Poulson

So beautiful
but often unseen
a maid of nature
the street cleaner that's everywhere
never thanked
never liked
always ignored
so elegant in a way no one sees
but without it we would
be in trash up to our knees
with the heart of a lion
the mind of a fox
the color of the night fox
a crow
the unpaid workman
that helps in every way
each and every day