poem: "How the Raven Stole the Sun"

[fannishliss]

How the Raven Stole the Sun

Does the raven remember
when it spoke to the wolves,
calling out aerial reconnaissance,
cackling the pack to the prey?

Does the black bird dream of the bright sunlight,
blood spilling out brilliant red onto snow,
prising its beak into crannies, drawing out
beads like rubies, riches, hot with life?

The secret tongue in that feathered black throat
has never learned to howl, but knows
the whispers of the forest at night,
silver on the sun-side of clouds,

translation from famine to feast, life to
death to life: a raven in a barren tree, laughing.

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This is original poem is totally mine, copyright to me, 2013.  If you'd like to share or reprint, just ask!  Please let me know what you think of it; I am really pleased with this one.  :)

Notes: The Raven is a trickster figure in the mythology of the Native Americans of the Northwest Coast.   I love trickster figures and I also love actual ravens, who are smart, funny, tricky birds.  The fact about them leading wolves to prey is well-known.

Comments

[aililinnea.livejournal.com]

I was just browsing through your journal - this is very nice!

[fannishliss.livejournal.com]

thanks! I was very pleased with it. I have an MFA, but I write somewhat old-fashioned poems, about mythology and symbols and deep archetypes, that Romanticism, HD, Yeats kind of thing. :)

[aililinnea.livejournal.com]

And I write dirty doggerel, as you know. :D But I appreciate other things. Yeats is one of my favorites.