I Witness A Raven
When the moonlight fractures the patterned frost,
in fragments chiseled into the glass,
shattering and refracting its battery
of light, in silent solace through my window,
I witness a raven through eyes
thick and glazed with sleep.
The night hermit probes his feast
of carrion, picking at entrails, a solitary
meal devoured beneath the round moon’s
undaunted glare, refracting the criss-cross
claw marks on the crust.
The boughs and branches
are furred with frost, casting their shadows
upon dunes of snow. He lifts his hollow
wings, a rancid clump of meat in his beak,
and springs upon a limb, scattering
the snow that’s sprinkled there;
the moon wears a ring
of diffused blue, foretelling snow in the morning,
replenishing the chill in the wind.
The stars that cut the blue-black sky sing
like crystals, but are dulled to wet parchment.
The hesitant dawn is inching its hazy throat
toward the horizon, and the raven, a lone witness
to the dying night. The black pearls of his eyes
shine with a cold luster, untouched
by the palls of weather,
toughened by the glint of his harsh feather.
poem by Caroline Misner
Added by Poetry Lover
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