The Color Black  | listen in RealAudio |

                      for raven

The raucous sounds of birds burned
black with rage,
banished forever
to a cage
with fear for bars, victims of
their own inauspicious presence
on battlefields past.
Waiting.
Sensing what

was to come.
The smell of rotting

flesh. (Did they know who was to die?)
Ah, but this unbearable silence
filled with
thought's ravenous flies
biting at the brain's tender meat.

Such a bird
is no friend.

But who is lacking in light? Is no
rapprochement possible? Do we
not feel for

this creature

whose wings
must fly through
skies
clouded with
death's image?

See the clarity of their calm
indifference.

Soaring quietly now from
their high place of safety, a day-
time

   witness

to our ancient dread of night.