Photography © Janet Ruth
COVID CENTO // CO[R]VID C[U]ENTO
—As an ornithologist, every morning that I woke to an on-line New York Times summary headline about Covid-19 over the last five years, I thought “Corvid,” which is a group of birds including crows, ravens, jays, magpies, rooks, choughs, etc. and so I went in search of other poets’ stories about corvids.
IRRATIONAL CO[R]VID FEARS
I had heard / all about magpies, how they /
snooped and meddled / in the affairs of others. (Philip Levine)
CO[R]VID SWEEPSTAKES
Thousands / of crows close enough for me to reach out
with the tip of my foot / & touch their beaks. I am consumed with
fear /
. . . the crow dream. . . / I am a crow among crows. (Yaccaira
Salvatierra)
CO[R]VID HOPE OVER FEAR
“Hope” is the thing with feathers— / that perches in the soul— /
and sings the tune without the words— / and never stops—
at all—
(Emily Dickinson)
KIDS, CO[R]VID AND DELTA
When he was young he flew / with a gang of jackdaws /
who had empty hearts / and huge appetites. (Phil Roberts)
RED-AMERICA’S CO[R]VID PROBLEM
That fool crow, . . . understands the center of the world as greasy
strips of fat. . . . doesn’t have to say that the earth has turned
scarlet. . .
after centuries of heartbreak. (Joy Harjo)
MORE CO[R]VID MYSTERIES
Swarthy, dapper, bright-eyed, immaculate, / like coal carved fresh
from a mysterious mine, / he struts the field, dress-suited, a
malign /
diplomat from an ancient consulate. (Kelsey Thornton)
CO[R]VID AND THE DELTA VARIANT
Crow plays piano where it sweeps voices of blues, / as musical
notes
into piles— . . . it stretches long notes across the keys, . . . crow
cries
as it strikes their bluest of blue notes. (Diane Sahms)
BREAKTHROUGH CO[R]VID, IN PERSPECTIVE
Crow shows another point / of view, a more-than-human angle /
from which to learn air / and invisible, electric currents. (Cornelia
Hoogland)
A CO[R]VID UPDATE
Every morning, so far, I’m alive and now, / the crows break off
from the rest of the darkness / and burst up into the sky.
(Mary Oliver)
THE CO[R]VID TESTING PROBLEM
The rookery rocks with those racking coughs; / see them self-
isolate up in the trees. /
Jet-beaded eyes and their plague doctor beak; / Waiting, waiting
for that ultimate wheeze.
(Gray Lightfoot)
CO[R]VID GETS REDDER
Crow / walking out / the sacred temple of ribs / in a dance of
leaving /
the red tracks of scarce and private gods. (Linda Hogan)
CO[R]VID IS IN RETREAT
The crows puff their feathers and cry / between me and the sun, /
and I should go now. / They know me for what I am.
(Mary Oliver)
MY SEARCH FOR A CO[R]VID TEST
The raven perches, tilts his head, / ponders with corvid brain /
the puzzles of existence, / or at least the test before him—
a piece of meat / dangling from a string. (Janet Ruth)
THE CO[R]VID FABLE
And in the end of all / crows will come back and sing the funeral.
(Thomas Merton)
CO[R]VID CASES KEEP FALLING
I hadn’t seen a jay / in years—I’d almost forgotten they existed. /
Such obvious, quarrelsome, vivid birds / that turn the air
around them crystalline. (Stanley Plumly)
CO[R]VID GETS EVEN REDDER
He gives her food and the saliva / of his red mouth, draws her
black feathers,
sweet / as shining grass across his bill. (Gillian Clarke)
CO[R]VID AND AGE
It’s the last day of the old raven. / His turn has come and soon a
pall /
of darkness will cover him up. (Desanka Maksimović)
CO[R]VID THANKSGIVING, ROUND 2
I think for my Thanksgiving feast / I need to cook that horrid
beast, /
and then my Raven, furthermore, / will be a Raven nevermore.
(Roy E. Peterson)
THE LATEST CO[R]VID SURGE
The jay’s cry’s / like metal among the elms— / canned
radio-resonances, /
racketing into arch on arch, / spanking the panes of silence down.
(Peter Kane Dufault)
CO[R]VID TREATMENTS ON THE WAY
a crow-blast, one hundred farmers with one hundred shotguns /
jerking off the sky with a giant penis of hate / . . . but they ran out
of shells
before they ran out of crows / and the crows came back. (Charles
Bukowski)
MAKING SENSE OF CO[R]VID CHANGES
Let it blow you apart till your feathers fly off and / you look like
hell. /
Then abandon yourself. / The wind is not your enemy.
(Phyllis Wheatley)
A CO[R]VID POLL
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure
no craven,
ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the
Nightly shore—
tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.” (Edgar Allan Poe)
ZERO CO[R]VID IN CHINA
My thoughts of poetry are like the magpie at night,
circling three times, unable to settle. (Li Qingzhao)
RED CO[R]VID, AN UPDATE
Crows / like black flowers on the snow. / . . . they have seen /
some streak of death on the dark ice. / They gather around it
and consume
everything, the strings / and the red music of that nameless body.
(Mary Oliver)
THE LATEST CO[R]VID SURGE
Dark laughter / floods the riverbank / a roost of crows.
(Janet Ruth)
CO[R]VID AND THE “VERY LIBERAL”
A crow flew into the tree outside my window. / It was not
Ted Hughes’s crow,
or Galway’s crow. / Or Frost’s, Pasternak’s, or Lorca’s crow. / . . .
This was just
a crow. / That never fit in anywhere in its life. (Raymond Carver)
REDUCING CO[R]VID’S TOLL
Black wings gathering in the deserted / parking lot below the
Assembly of God. /
Ravens at play in the desolate fields / of the lord. (Dorianne Laux)
A NEW CO[R]VID MYSTERY
Magpie on a bough / tipped his head and said, /
“Here in the mind, brother / turquoise blue.” (Gary Snyder)
CO[R]VID IN THE NORTHEAST
I went . . to my retreat in Maine because I had seen ravens
there behaving in what seemed to me an irrational way,
and I wanted to find out why. (Bernd Heinrich)
COPING WITH “ZERO CO[R]VID”
In a barren springtime field / stands a woman dressed in black /
crying her sisters’ names / like a bird in the empty sky.
(Victoria Amelina)
CO[R]VID AND RACE
I watched a flock of crows / fly by, / counted forty-two
black souls,
then up to sixty-five, / maybe more. /. . . a congregation I refused
to call a murder / because profiling ain’t what I do.
(J. Drew Lanham)
THE LATEST CO[R]VID SURGE
His palace is of skulls. . . his throne is the scaffold of bones. . .
his robe is the black of the last blood. (Ted Hughes)
OUR LATEST CO[R]VID POLL
Statuesque, raven-tressed, a goddess of the night / a secret
incantation, candle burning blue. / We’ll consult the spirits,
maybe they’ll know what to do. (The Grateful Dead, John Barlow)
CO[R]VID’S TOLL ON NATIVE AMERICANS
Crow rides a pale horse / into a crowded powwow /
but none of the Indian panic. / Damn, says Crow, I guess /
they already live near the end of the world. (Sherman Alexie)
CO[R]VID BOOSTERS
Vision becomes / a welcome to guests of crows in new /
dimensions who themselves become / not only depth and horizon
in a circus / of wings but old vision’s startling visitors.
(Pattiann Rogers)
UNNECESSARY CO[R]VID DEATHS
Like charred pears / a thousand rooks break from the bough /
fall to puddles, cast their parched cares / into the eyes
of the melted snow. (Boris Pasternak)
CHINA’S NEW CO[R]VID CHAPTER
When crows fly over the villages / panic erupts like a flash flood /
soon after, as Nanmusa has prophesied / a plague spreads
along the valley /
some life soon evaporated. (Gao Qiongxian)
A BETTER CO[R]VID WINTER
The way a crow / shook down on me /
the dust of snow / from a hemlock tree. (Robert Frost)
AN UNDERUSED CO[R]VID TREATMENT
Once I said to a scarecrow, “You must be tired of standing in this /
lonely field.” /
And he said, “The joy of scaring is a deep and lasting one, and I /
never tire of it.”
(Kahlil Gibran)
THE DEBATE OVER CO[R]VID’S ORIGIN
A band of black, belated crows arrive from lands unknown.
(Emily Pauline Johnson)
THE LONG SHADOW OF CO[R]VID SCHOOL CLOSURES
Feathered dark in thought, I stalk like a rook, /
brooding as the winter night comes on. (Sylvia Plath)
A POSITIVE CO[R]VID MILESTONE
There’s a crow flying / black and ragged / tree to tree /
he’s black as the highway leading me. (Joni Mitchel)
THE CO[R]VID ORIGIN DEBATE
One story has it we flew in here / on the backs of birds. Ravens
to be exact. /
They still don’t hold us in high regard, / . . .they seem to know /
we won’t last. (Tom Crawford)
THE SIDE EFFECTS OF CO[R]VID VACCINES
“By heaven, I would most gladly have forgotten it. / Thou
saidst—O,
it comes o’er my memory / as doth the raven o’er the infectious
house,
boding to all—he had my handkerchief.” (William Shakespeare)
TWO CO[R]VID THEORIES
I gave much credence to stragglers, / overrated the composure of
blackbirds /
and the folklore of magpies. (Seamus Heaney)
WHAT CO[R]VID TAUGHT US
Magpie is the tarot card. (Sian Mackay)
~~~
CREDITS – This cento is a patchwork of New York Times summary headlines matched with corvid-related pieces by the following authors, “poems/lyrics/plays/books”
Philip Levine, “Magpiety”
Yaccaira Salvatierra, “A Crow Among Crows”
Emily Dickinson, “314”
Phil Roberts, “A Gang of Jackdaws”
Joy Harjo, “My House is the Red Earth”
Kelsey Thornton, “The Crow”
Diane Sahms, “Crow in Variations”
Cornelia Hoogland, “Her Familiar”
Mary Oliver, “Landscape”
Gray Lightfoot, “Counting Crows in a Time of Plague (Corvid 19)”
Linda Hogan, “Crow Law”
Mary Oliver, “Entering the Kingdom”
Janet Ruth, “Raven Heart”
Thomas Merton, “Fable for a War”
Stanley Plumly, “Still Missing the Jays”
Gillian Clarke, “Choughs”
Note: Cornish Choughs are the only corvids with red bills and legs
Desanka Maksimović, “Death of a Raven”
Roy E. Peterson, “My Raven”
Peter Kane Dufault, “The Jay’s Cry”
Charles Bukowski, “The Weather is Hot on the Back of My Watch”
Phyllis Wheatley, “Raven, Teach Me to Ride the Winds of Change”
Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven”
Li Qingzhao (1084–1151), translated by Wendy Chen, fragment
Mary Oliver, “Crows”
Janet Ruth, untitled haiku
Raymond Carver, “My Crow”
Dorianne Laux, “The Ravens of Denali”
Gary Snyder, “Magpie’s Song”
Bernd Heinrich, Raven in Winter
Victoria Amelina, “Poem About a Crow”
Note: V Amelina was a Ukrainian writer, killed in a Russian missile strike.
J. Drew Lanham, “No Murder of Crows”
Ted Hughes, “King of Carrion”
The Grateful Dead, John Barlow, “I Need a Miracle”
Sherman Alexie, “Crow Testament”
Pattiann Rogers, “This Little Glade, Remember”
Boris Pasternak, “February”
Gao Qiongxian, translated by Ming Di, “Prophet”
Robert Frost, “Dust of Snow”
Kahlil Gibran, “The Scarecrow”
Emily Pauline Johnson, “The Flight of the Crows”
Sylvia Plath, “Winter Landscape with Rooks”
Joni Mitchell, “Black Crow”
Tom Crawford, “Raven”
William Shakespeare, Othello, Act IV, Scene 1, Othello to Iago
Seamus Heaney, “Drifting Off”
Sian Mackay, “Magpie”
Janet Ruth is a New Mexico ornithologist and poet. Her writing focuses on connections to the natural world. She has recent poems in Tiny Seed Literary Journal, The Nature of Our Times, Ekphrastic Review, and anthologies including New Mexico Poetry Anthology 2023. Her sonnet, “A World That Shimmers,” won the inaugural True Concord Poetry Contest, was set to music by the 2023 winner of the Emerging Composer Contest and performed by True Concord Voices and Orchestra in Tucson, October 2023. Her book, Feathered Dreams: celebrating birds in poems, stories & images was a Finalist for the 2018 NM/AZ Book Awards.
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