I am the crow-I am the crow-his skin is my body. – CHIPPEWA SONG
You went out, hoping
to be given a question or a path
up a mountain you had never seen.
Then the future would release
like a bowstring, and sing like arrow-feathers
flying to the deep end of your dreams.
It was the moon of the cracking trees.
The north wind was like a skinning knife.
Even hunger left you.
At last it was the crows
that held to the branches after the leaves,
croaking like grandfathers, demanding attention.
They carried you away, in pieces, like an ear of corn,
and left you with your own secret wings
and a strange song on your stiff lips.
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