I.
In the fall morning sky, high above the white glaze
of the brown mountain range, a raven would fly.
She’d flutter then plunge through the dawn light and fog
over fields filled with songs of the killdeer and dove –
while the sun, young and red, behind her would float
for to trim her black coat with a violety thread.
Each morning I’d pause to watch her advance
across the expanse and hear her guffaw
as it rippled throughout all the valley –
a solemn but beautiful psalm seeming to sprout
on the wintery winds and blossoming in me
as if having been the frank words of a friend.
I know it’s absurd to give praise to a thing
so removed and remote – a bird is a bird.
Her flight was routine and her squawk was the same,
probably searching for game in the pastures between
that great rock and my home – but her worth was my own
as I staggered alone in a darkening world.
When a gloom in my gut had me clutched round its pit
like a rotten grey peach in a gravel ravine,
that bird gave me hope and a reason to rise
as she carried the light of the dawn on her back
from those easterly peaks to my door – and my soul.
II.
In some book about birds of America’s west,
I read ravens are fond of life’s lustrous things;
with silvery gewgaws and jewelry gone lost,
they’ll garnish their nests with the knickknacks they nab.
So – the week I moved out, I set holiday tinsel
of silver and red on the stump of a lightening
struck larch in my yard – a small token of thanks
to a bird (or a friend) from a heart sentimental
at saying goodbye. She took it and fled.
That same night I came home to a gift
of my own. A shimmering spherule sat mute
on the larch, ensnaring the glow of the moon light.
A Bulbasaur marble all swirled up with gleam,
a rare gem it would seem.
Frank LaRussa is an M.A. student in the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago. His poetry largely aims to explore the relationships between the human psyche, society, and the natural world. His poem in this issue of Euphony is his first published piece.
Euphony Journal 