A heart contracts. Less room in it, and what
was once inside pressed outward. Chamber walls
close in, then stop. A heart expands, it calls
blood in from elsewhere. No return: the way is shut.
The limbs breathe blood, inhale it in great draughts,
come full alive. Air in the carmine flood,
flood in the air. Crow’s wings push off, warm blood
to tinge the skin around the feather shafts,
the blood aloft. The heart aloft. Crow’s feet
are numb where they have grasped too long. Blood aches
through black and taloned fingers. Feeling wakes,
alive again, suffused with sanguine heat,
and tucked under Crow’s breast of velvet night.
Crow’s feet can rest when Crow’s heart is in flight.

1. 
   Theriomorph 2007 11 05 at 6:16:03 pm

   I love this series so much, and remain utterly delighted by the few words ‘the blood aloft,’ which just work so deeply on so many levels - iambic, imagistic, metaphoric. Love. More crow’s feet, please.

   Also digging the poem spyder posted very much - thanks for that.

   Today I took a brief hike in the Green Mountain National Forest - a raven was tracking me & Gilly, talking and talking. Finally we just stopped walking and throwing sticks, and listened attentively for a while; it spent its storytelling, once it was appreciated for a while, and moved on, and we went back to stick throwing.

   Gilly usually finds birds profoundly boring, but whatever today’s raven was relating, it was apparently a ripping good yarn. He was fascinated.