Collitt

Ravens! Great Ravens!
Your damning cawls deride
histories sweeping beneath
your blackened wings –

Shatter the day
O flags of night,
rend with shadows
this innocent light

Ravens! Great Ravens!
Your drumming clouds arrive
swoop’d sudden sheer,
hissing travails
from no place
t’ the other –

Shatter the day,
O flags of night,
rend with shadows
this innocent light

Ravens! Great Ravens!
Your beaks clatter open
disgorging the sweat
of straining dismay
the clack of bones
promised this day –

I’ve seen the sheen
of your eyes the laughter
that rimes the living
your passing but an illusion –
we stop, we stare
we curse your cold winds
in knowing your flight’s path
wheeling you round us
again, oh, for ever again!

Ravens
Collitt (b.978)
GotM, UK Trade, p.462-3