Why Be Caws

tinyurl.com/whybecaws

In memoriam Martin Gardner (1914-2010),
editor of The Annotated Alice (1960)

A raven’s like a writing-desk in that
You’ll find both in woods and dens, whereat
     Both have flaps, legs, and bills,
     Both possess inky quills,
And both produce notes that are flat.

Their traces are left all around,
On the walls and the stalls and the ground;
     But sometimes the laws
     May require they give ‘​cause’
Whereby they may hold what they’ve found.

They may never say words, yet — no joke —
With the harshest of voices they’ve spoke;
     And though Poe wrote on both,
     Yet I give you my oath,
They’ve done more on him since his croak.

© 2004 C. M. Joserlin, "Raven"

(Some of these individual solutions had been offered by other authors in Gardner's 1960 volume.)