In The Woods

A savage wind lashes the tree
tops sending them swaying
in the winter woods
a tone poem of trunks
clacking against one another
punctuating the low rushing
roar of the wind as it
rages against the forest canopy
sending last year's crop of
juvenile crows into a
synchronized spurt of black
dervishes high in the sky
interrupting their impudent
raging croaks directed at an
owl perched on the crooked
bare mast of a dead pine
unperturbed by the crows' 
challenges to a maestro of raw
and deadly rapacity beyond and
above their role as opportunists
mere carrion-eaters lacking the
will and the skill to swoop
upon oblivious prey, their
deadly talons and beak
formidable to their task. One
nocturnal the other diurnal
nature investing them with 
unequal qualities; the hunters
and their clever tormentors.