collects paper stars, ribbons, various weathers
stolen from the top-shelf box
in the locked room
where I keep what I must forget.
Here is my nun's cell in its spare austerity.
My kept crow comes to my hand,
and I see myself in his tilted eye.
His gift is vertigo dreams
where, at last, I let go of balance
and approximate flight as sleeping dogs and suicides do.
In riven night, I arise
--as my crow would understand--
and go to him, my dark swain, my confessor.
He gives me paper stars, ribbons, various weathers;
I leave him with a bauble
red, meaty, useless
to pull apart.
My kept crow
is kind in the gray-white ash of morning.
He makes no insistence that I rise,
though he sees my open eyes,
my open bleed,
and the open window that shows his free brothers
and mocks our combined, if pretty, superfluity.
________
I love so much about this glorious poem Shay!! The collection of paper stars and raw openess like sharing ones inner secrets and the freedom that holds. I especially love the idea of seeing yourself in the crows tilted eye. Spectacular!! 🤩🤩
ReplyDeleteI always love a poem with a crow in it. Love his tilted eye. I like that locked room too "where I keep what I must forget." The line about approximating flight is rather brilliant. I remember Pup, his legs moving in spasm, towards the end, as he dreamed.
ReplyDeleteI have written about the nun's cell, myself, and counted every cobweb and crack in its walls. A blessing to have a crow to share it with, or perhaps, with his penchant for bringing the shiny things out that one most wants locked away, not so much. But the final lines indicate that sometimes things work out if one is helped into letting them go.Beautiful, and a bit frightening, as only the truth can be.
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