When We Got to Arizona and the Petrified Forest

—and here’s where my story goes into weirdness so I won't tell you about my dream of the Grand Canyon and what transpired because that is another story. Let me just say at the Petrified Forest I met 3 crows and they followed us from site to site. Later we went to a nearby hotel and while we were at dinner 3 guys walked in and I swear they were the crows. When we made eye contact it was like we all knew each other though we never said a word. I saw them again in the morning, said hey, and one of the guys just laughed. That night and for many a night thereafter a crow followed me North in my dreams.

One day after we bought this house I had a horrible migraine and a pileated woodpecker started pounding the gutters. I went out to persuade it to leave when 3 crows came out of nowhere and chased it away. Of course I started feeding the crows and now in the spring the family brings the nestlings, the ones that fledge and live, by the house. Sometimes there are more than 3. It’s great they keep the songbirds away, my cats are very fond of murder. Sometimes a raven comes by and sings to me.

I had a dream last night and in it a crow told me to ask about your health. So I'm asking.

Laura LeHew’s collections include: Becoming (Another New Calligraphy), Willingly Would I Burn, (MoonPath Press), It’s Always Night, It Always Rains, (Winterhawk Press) and Beauty (Tiger’s Eye Press). She has poems in American Society: What Poets See, Eleven Eleven, Ghost Town, Of/With, PANK and Slice. In her other life Laura owns a computer forensics and network security consulting company. Laura received her MFA from the California College of Arts. She edits her small press Uttered Chaos. Laura knows nothing of gardens or gardening but is well versed in the cultivation of cats.