Crow followed Ulysses till he turned
As a worm, which Crow ate.
Grappling with Hercules’ two puff-adders
He strangled in error Dejanira.
The gold melted out of Hercules’ ashes
Is an electrode in Crow’s brain.
Drinking Beowulf’s blood, and wrapped in his hide,
Crow communes with poltergeists out of old ponds.
His wings are the stiff back of his only book,
Himself the only page — of solid ink.
So he gazes into the quag of the past
Like a gypsy into the crystal of the future,
Like a leopard into a fat land.
~ Crowego, from Ted Hughes’ Crow
