Twa Corbies

Twa Corbies is a traditional folk song from Scotland.  You can find the original and a translation here...

Two black crows,

caped in feathers,

etched 4B

against the charcoal tarmac,

pecking with blade-black beaks

at some flattened thing

in the middle of

the London Road,

hopping highwaymen

pecking

then checking,

glancing,

dancing,

expecting to fly,

then hopping back and pecking again

quick as thieves

nicking stuff,

on nervous legs

preparing for the bounce off

Twa Corbies - an Illustration by Arthur Rackham

before some truck

or bus

can come and turn them

into the sort of mess

they are pecking at.

Sin eaters.

Twa corbies

borrowed from

the Dark Peak,

here at the traffic lights,

pecking at Death.

Then, later, 

two

like flapping, tattered binbags

stuffed up in a

leafless tree,

on finger thin branches

clawing at the All Souls’ sky

just by Johanna’s flats,

hunched down into their shoulders

finger smudges of rain

on their tarpaulin wings.