From Feb 06 Archives:

RAVENS

A cluster of darkling winter ravens
moves like a net across the redgrey snow sky
circles - careens - looks for sleeping heads to catch
to net - to drag to sudden flight
above the blank white of a hundred
square rooftops huffing their winter fuel out
in brown breaths
inside dreamers eat dinner - curl in red blanket
pass the plate - the sweet and meat
and sleep and sleep while ravens
passing like a net - do not hesitate
never waver in their undulation
their syncopatic formation

CROW IN HIS DARK UNIFORM

the crow asleep is a hill
dark slope of wings
pasture called night

deep black
as holes in cosmos
eyes two lost planets
in separate orbit

a crow in speech
is the squall
of some tiny dark hurricane
called birth

crow in his dark uniform
marches the sky named day
taxes the rooted inhabitants
with shrill orders
and intricate procedures
of drill



-TIMOTHY SHAY

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