AUBURN - In a poem about crows, Howard Nelson changed the words to better fit the city of Auburn's crow problem.

“Fifty thousand crows have settled on bare branches,” he recited during a reading of poetry inspired by nature at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center Thursday. “What a mess for Auburn.”

Nelson, a professor of English at Cayuga Community College, recently edited the book “Earth: My Likeness: Nature Poetry of Walt Whitman.”

Thursday's reading was part of the exhibit “As the Crow Flies,” inspired by the thousands of crows that have called Auburn their home in recent years.

Nelson wrote a poem as a special tribute to the city of Auburn and the uniqueness that it has held as a small urban town through the years.

“Auburn is the fairest in may ways,” he said of another poem written about a different city of Auburn, adding that it fit the central New York city all the same.

“The Arterial seems to have been a heart bypass surgery that hasn't turned out to well,” he joked. “Still, Auburn perseveres, through public officials fist fighting in city hall and the very first execution at the Auburn prison. And adding to its uniqueness is its 50,000 crows.”

In what he called a “thesaurus poem,” Nelson said Auburn has been cursed - or blessed - with not just a flock of crows but a brigade, a murder (and other words straight from the thesaurus).

If you go

What: “As the Crow Flies”

When: Continues through Oct. 30

Where: Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center, 205 Genesee St., Auburn