Raven

Tonight was my first night leading a young adult writing group that has been meeting for the last 7+ years. I feel very privileged to have been asked to provide guidance and leadership for these young writers. This group of mostly females ranges in age from 14-22 and they are each brilliant and impressive- and that is no hyperbole. We did a writing prompt tonight in the form of poetry with the theme of a raven and wrote for 20 minutes. Here is what I wrote:

Raven

Black and bleak

In forest air

With strong, stark beak

I pause to

Let it pass

And inside weak

Feel crumbling feet

As earth below

Shakes empty, weeps

A shattered tree

Spiked chord chards fly

Sparse and dry

So, Sparse and dry

An engine hums

And knocks below

She blows the earth

Sucks gagged guts up

Can’t leave it be

Oh, me, me, me

Stuck to ground

As Raven frowns

We have displeased

Him

And I, myself

I hang head down

Can’t bare the losses

So close to crossing

To streams and dreams and catching things

Important

We’ve lost it

Importance

We let it go

To catch such mundane things

In grasp, Instead

Raven swoops

On clump’ed hair

And I don’t fight back

No, I don’t dare

Righteous bird

Black and stark

With strong beak

He challenges

And I, apologetic, march

And clutch the bark

And rack my brain

For recovered art

A simple, shrugging

Bird below

Hollers, wimps and

Seems to go

The unnamed victim

Of the show

Raven pulls me in

So close

And

Spreads his wings

Like spines, those things

They flick me back

As he ascends

To attend to the

Dying youngling

Leaving my sorrow

In the wake

Tending to the

Tomorrows

Ever the gallant soldier

I could learn

A thing or two

From him