Ah, what the hell. I wrote this almost exactly two years ago, and it’s time to air it out.

I wrote it, and then a week later Angus and Kim read it to our friend Madeleine as she lay dying.

I wrote it thinking of missing someone. It still speaks loss to me, but of a different sort. Funny, that.

Crow music

Let my black sun glint off my black beak;
it will spawn a dark coruscation in eyes that pass below.
Let it glint off sable feathers.
Splayed primaries shudder, shine a Sirius of color.

We hold our wiry territory
five strands hung from pole to pole.
Sidle too close along the line, and beak will snap,
nape will flare. We are
an arpeggio of feathers on a blue sky stave.

The rage that sings along these wires
raises not the slightest tremor as we clasp them.

If you who weep hang up your phone,
slam your door, and stalk distracted
past the creosoted timbers holding us aloft,
our corrugated song will steel your spine.

Warm breeze plays about splayed wing.
A bored ecstasy of stretching,
another shudder, and I fold it back along me.

1. 
   jean 2005 12 08 at 2:01:05 am

   would a “Sirius of color” be some shade of purple, by any chance?

   nice stuff, chris. love them corvids.

2. 
   Tiltmom 2005 12 08 at 9:04:58 am

   Wow, do I ever remember that.

   Hey Chris, I don’t have your new address. Please drop me a note. Thanks.

3. 
   beth 2005 12 08 at 1:58:26 pm

   It’s still good.

4. 
   Angus 2005 12 08 at 7:33:34 pm

   As it turns out, I need your email too, Chris. Drop me a line?

5. 
   jon 2005 12 09 at 2:34:06 am

   five strands hung from pole to pole.

   Sidle too close along the line, and beak will snap,

   nape will flare. We are

   an arpeggio of feathers on a blue sky stave.

    

   Not because of my musical heart, but because of the subtext this reveals, it’s lovely.