The Crow
by mazHur

Unusually, the monsoon poured heavily this year,
putting most of the homed and homeless in trouble;
roofs of many a house leaked down and trickled,
 inundated the low-lying slums with aqueous fear.

Giant trees got brushed down with rain and fell;
small grass bent and leaned down as if  at rest;
drenched got birds in the trees and mansion holes,
life seemed  drowning in the  rainy spell. 

Pariah  dogs and cats and mice ran for their lives
avoiding to be carried away with the watery gush
on low land, for shelter in any nook on hand,
bees and wasps pinged with rain-drops tucked in hives.

Suddenly I saw a black thing lying near the hedge
that spread along my outer lawn flushed with rain;
 compelled by this unusual sighting I couldn’t  wait
  to see  who the devil was lying near the sedge.

 Next minute I was standing on its head, wondering,
what I could do to save his life, send him home,
he couldn’t stand on his legs, nor walk nor fly,
 billed and beaked and clawed his  parents  could do nothing.

What that young of a Mahakala was doing there?
but for sure  he was lying half-dead  exposed to risk
of being devoured by the pariah dogs and cats
or to be dead with wetness  till the sun may appear.

I bent over him and extended my hand to pick him up
but the dude opened up his bill as if to bite;
A little fear coupled with courage  I finally moved
on to  get hold of the  dying  hungry Crup.

Like a charmer catching a cobra by the neck,
I tightly gripped the torso of the  baby crow
lest it turned  and stung me with his sharp beak;
  I was certainly wrong  as hunger and cold
   the crow-ling had  unabled, feverishly  turned  weak.

Then from nowhere came two crows   and began to  hover
over my head crowing and cawing as hard as they could;
Intelligent and clever yet good judge of  goodness,
they pecked at me or my head  as they would do in furor.

I saw them and guessed they were none else
than the parents of that  incautious baby crow,
whom rain had thrown out of his haven,  his  nest,
and who  now lay  in my hands with  dimming pulse.

The elder crows, the two of them,
circled over and over my head as i stood
thinking what to do with the little brood,
how to save the life of  that Utnapishtim’s gem.

I looked around for the wretched nestlings home,
but found no eyrie, no airie,  no refuge, no nest;
no  place for me  to drop him in safer hands
no shelter for a living one would the world entomb.

Finally I  rested  him up on a nearby  densely bush,
 hoping his loving   folk would pick and take him away;
but  worse than a crow he lay there like a crow bait
his  raven plumage  merging  with  night’s dark lush.

No one to care no  sound of a  rescuer’s  ting,
young without care would  hardly survive;
fit as a young  but not as fit as the fittest adult,
  the mute nestling  was bound to   die ‘fore it  could sing.

Mercy for  none  those are  weaker and defenseless,
Laws of Nature  are too  harsh  more cruel,
for the birds to carry and  relocate  their nestlings,
poor and deprived Aves lesser lifting tools do possess.

I tried my best to save and send home the baby crow
but for his   reasons own he’d to  eternity  go.
…………………………………..