A poem by Will Burns.

Crows devoid of detail –
sharp black shapes against the snow.
All that was once greens, yellows, reds –
reduced to a near geometric pattern
of cordoned white and blackish-brown;
the hill’s edge running
straight into the grey-white sky.

The bird’s calls crack
across the blank expanse of the valley’s
improbably uniform, endless sky-sheaf.
All these movements are
not actual crows, not individuals,
but the bird’s monotone essence;
the idea of the crow, the crow’s core –
marks on a white page.

Will has written about the poet Edward Thomas in the current edition of the Caught by the River fanzine, An Antidote To Indifference. He will be talking Thomas and reading a poem or two at the Antidote Alive! event, taking place at The Stag public house, Hampstead, London, on Tuesday night. Advance tickets (at the cheaper price of £5.00) are availabe HERE.