Image - “Questions for Raven Watchers”--- Masahisa Fukase “Ravens” (Japan) 2017
Last
Race
Arctic
caribou plunge, snort, and flare nostrils
in a romping rampage crackling the sky
because their splayed hooves left the burning
tundra and the sunset quells
fiery antlers in a sea woven of lavender
mist from drifting duets of snow geese
passing perils one wingbeat at a time.
Their signal the green flash
before dark
Longing- a Cinquain Poem
Crisscrossed
necklaces flung
across Sauvie Island
Pewter skies chorusing flying
Snow Geese
Hollow
bones. White feathered
aerial pelotons
calling restless waves forming
Heart Beats
To fly
Lift heavy feet
Dream luminous full moon
magical metamorphosis
Free Fall
Evensong
Open palms drum rainfall staccatoing
Downy Woodpecker tap tap tap
Dance of russet bass notes hovering
Belted Kingfisher a fling bling dive
Dazzle splashed joy rising up cascading
Dipper song a winter rainbow
Spray and crash a sonorous
jazzing
Black-capped Chickadee dee dee dee
Alarm signal songbirds into cymbal clashing
Sharp-shinned Hawk hunger a taut guitar
String plucked too many times
snapping
Pine Siskins into startled striped escape
Feather flight the muffled cry of yearning
Questions for Raven Watchers
To the scientist climbing the tallest white pine in a
Maine blizzard:
When five ravens rumbled by at eye-level. When your grip tightened
on the gusting mast, did you fly from your body?
To the two skiers shivering on a chairlift:
Goggles fogged, toes freezing, every breath a knife in your throat. Even so,
did you clap your mittens at the barrel rolls of two ravens exulting in a
storm? Or was your misery too great to notice?
To the wildlife photographer in Japan:
Did a black wingtip touch your cheek in blessing or curse? Did you answer the
croaks and caws
in the language of Yatagarasu, messenger of the Gods? When you pushed click at
the exact moment of passage, who was captured?
To the lone woman on top of Bessie Butte in Oregon:
When high winds whipped your hair, stole your voice, and cracked malaise in
half like a split plum tree, did you quake in the quickening? Did the glide of
held wings shear cumulonimbus clouds into a river of ephemeral light? What was
it like to sprint through powdery snow mounded on bunchgrass to catch the last
glimpse?
To the scientist, skier, photographer, and lone woman
on top of Bessie Butte:
Who is Raven? Trickster. Light bringer. Change maker. Storm flyer. Ravenous.
I want
hair that is wild
tangling multi-hued
thick silky and oh so very
long and curly
i want to ride the fastest
carousel undizzied leaning out
to grasp the golden
ring for the next
go round
to play my flute
in duet with a canyon wren
sweet notes tumbling all the way
down the grand canyon
to be the flooding river
carving oxbows
braiding dreams
never the same
I want to rewind
the winding memories
reflecting
every star
Marina Richie is a
nature writer living in Bend, Oregon. She is the author of Halcyon
Journey: In Search of the Belted Kingfisher, winner of a 2022 National
Outdoor Book Award. Her prose has appeared in Post Road Magazine, Think
Journal, Birdwatching, Center for Humans and Nature, and
other publications. She has published poems in Humans of the World,
Musepaper, and Tiny Seed Journal. Visit her website to read her
bi-monthly Kingfisher Journey blog: www.marinarichie.com
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