The realist crows return at earliest morning. And the madman with broom,

madman in his nightshirt with a broom, he too returns. He thinks to roust the crows

from the mulberry boughs by jabbing and swirling his broom, by crazily twirling his broom

in the wet summer air and hurling curses skyward beyond the boughs and the crows

towards the fading gods among the fading stars. But the realist crows know it is only a man

in a nightshirt after dawn, that the broom is a broom and that his cries are nothing more

than words and half-words the heavy air will swallow. They rise anyway from the tree

as best to quiet him and let morning be morning. Soon enough they’ll return again

by twos and threes, settling among the spreading limbs, their laughter the same before and after.