If the sadness of a tolling bell
is the absence of melody,
the heartbeat is a melancholy rhythm
we don't want to escape,

but I need to believe there's a way out,
a plausible workaround
to the endless parade of a tuneless band.

Sometimes I just want to watch crows;
to witness their impossible dark mystery,
the kind that demands I open my eyes
to the magic of being alive.

In my family, it's the darker arts
that tend to follow the men around—
the curse of self-destruction,
carelessness about consequences.

So far I have escaped that ill-fate
with a sorcery of harmless charms,
and though my heart sometimes beats
with the sadness of a tolling bell
there is magic in being here to know it—

to know that I will not be here
much longer than a scarecrow
pondering what it's about—
this beauty of crows.