Chapter Twenty-two

Ravens! Great Ravens!

Your damning cawls deride

histories sweeping beneath

your blackened wings—

 

   Shatter the day

   O flags of night,

   rend with shadows

   this innocent light

 

Ravens! Great Ravens!

Your drumming clouds arrive

swoop’d sudden sheer,

hissing travails

from no place

t’ the other—

 

     Shatter the day,

     O flags of night,

     rend with shadows

     this innocent light

 

Ravens! Great Ravens!

Your beaks clatter open

disgorging the sweat

of straining dismay

the clack of bones

promised this day—

 

I’ve seen the sheen

of your eyes the laughter

that rimes the living

your passing but an illusion—

we stop, we stare

we curse your cold winds

in knowing your flight’s path

wheeling you round us

again, oh, forever again!

RAVENS

COLLITT (B.978)