crow finds a home

'There is a certain kind of magpie that can learn words; they become fond of some words, and not only repeat them but can be seen to ponder them. To learn a word they must hear it said often, and if a word is too difficult for them to learn they may die. When they forget a word they cheer up greatly when they hear it spoken'
---Pliny the Elder?

Only the magpie recognizes itself in the mirror. Recognizes only itself. Why this particular creature, no-one knows. Turns its face from the drowning world, delights in scattered flesh, is oblivious of judgement. Ancient affinities between crow and man? And why not woman?The dark half-opened eye,the piercing gaze, the raven of my heart searches for scraps of being, settles at last, makes her home. And in this way she, full of herself and speechless, without equal, makes me stumble, fall, crawl.
~~~

I was walking towards her, carrying a half-opened rose..

She was reclining on a carpet, receiving guests
Her neck a lily of immaculate whiteness
Please kneel here, she said, next to me...
This happened in another country, a lost century..

No doubt she married, had three children
Who can track down the details?

Why her precisely, I don't understand.
I'm not sure I'd recognize her on a busy street

And I ask myself why it is constructed so perversely;
so that life is vague and only death is real.
---C. Milosz.