Seven Crows

"One crow, sorrow

Two crows joy

Three crows a letter

Four crows a boy

Five crows silver

Six crows gold

Seven crows a story never to be told."

(William Butler Yeats)

Alex Colville based his 1980 painting Seven Crows on the Yeats poem.  In literature, crows can act as a harbinger of death.  Seven crows lurk over a field by the water as clouds hover overhead.  The birds hang in the air as the unspoken tension hangs in the picture.  Something is about to happen.  Perhaps it's a thunderstorm, perhaps much more.  It's "a story never to be told".  

https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/visualarts/2014/08/21/visual_art_alex_colville_art_gallery_of_ontario_ago_exhibition_painting.html