the crow

Beneath the twilight's somber gaze, I stood
where shadows weave with light the end of day.
A crow as black as hell's own brooding mood
perched silent, ere its call would flay the gray.

Once it harked, a sound so sharply cast
like a stone upon the coffin's chilling lid.
I shrugged it off, a moment quickly passed
in daylight's wane, where darker fears are hid.

Twice it harked, a herald's dread decree,
its voice a knell that tolled within my soul.
I paused and pondered, could this omen be
a sign, a portent, death's impending toll?

Once dismissed as but a creature's cry,
Twice regarded with a wary eye.

The crow, abyssal black, a void unfurled,
its feathers gleamed like onyx in the gloom.
a sentinel from the netherworld, it pearled
the silence with a fate-foreboding boom.

And there I stood, betwixt the night and day,
a man alone, with heart now gripped in fear.
Would thrice it hark, to usher my decay?
Would death himself, with scythe, draw ever near?

The crow, it seemed, a gate 'twixt life and bane,
its ebon guise, the night's eternal stain.
And then, a pause, as time itself grew still,
the world held breath, the final act to crown.

Thrice, now harked, for death's own hand
to reap the scythe of where I stand.