THE RAVEN'S SILHOUETTE
by David D. Gilbaugh
February 12, 2007
Observe the raven's silhouette,
bent wings sweeping salt across pale hues,
ascending winter’s icy mind on telling winds,
and whistling secret jewels
through fluted wings in pirouette.
See it watching us
from heights with time-blessed eyes,
black beads piercing heaven’s floor.
Hear its mourning call,
preaching heaven’s visions of the rues
to the truth about the ghouls.
. . . . . . . . . .
I am the raven of the secrets keep.
I am the morning’s jagged caw.
I am the teller of what weeps,
and I hold it’s likeness
in the shadow of my wing.
I watch burn-healing yucca pedals fall;
yellow flags on blackened hills of chaparral
and the white-oak's acorn crack from heat
to share the ground and spread its seed
to shed this light on spattered blood far east.
I see with ironwood eyes with stars,
and wait to speak of what I keep -
wanting that you would ask:
"What is that hidden in your shadow's art;
what is the truth beneath your wings?"
From high I’ve heard these feathered flutes
whistling from the melodies of Lhasa,
and I have grazed my wings
across red-silken news of swords
that clash from backs of barreled steeds
on hills of oily sand.
Out from the sun of other worlds,
I have watched words fall
like blue-tailed meteors,
downed white crested gender flashes,
driven by a thirst for gore:
an angry blast of winter’s frozen eye.
From the beginning,
the raven is always the last to speak,
inward screaming while I wait,
holding black-wings close in bitter winds,
until I drop flightless from the sky,
unable to breathe
so that I might grieve this black away,
exhaling it until I tell it all,
and this is the secret whispered in my wings:
"The ghouls have beautiful children too!"
