In a Dark Time

In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood--
A lord of nature weeping to a tree,
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.

What's madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall,
That place among the rocks--is it a cave,
Or winding path? The edge is what I have.

A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad day the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is--
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.

Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.

~ Theodore Roethke

Dust of Snow

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

~ Robert Frost

Crow's Feet

The noon sun blinds me
as I walk my dog
She pulls me toward her
usual walk by the sea
But in the brightness I
hear crows cawing, calling me
Saying, This is the Path I will take.

As I turn with the sun on my back
I find a single black crow
cawing against an untainted snowy field

She calls out
to her two companions across my path
Settling shiny dark feathers onto
proud backs -
While the bare arms of an
ancient oak embrace them
in the raw ocean winter wind.

The single crow flies over me
to meet the two
I hear her wings whisper over my head
Then she jolts the silence with her
"Caw! Caw!"

Their energy is so familiar.
They bring me back to the days
My Grandfather would feed the crows at 6am
cawing and calling with
such Crow Perfection.
A full murder would appear
calling back to Grandfather
thanking him
as if he was one of them -
Maybe he was.

And what is in my blood? This
bursting energy?
"Caw! Caw!" I call
to the three birds in the oak.
They peer at me in silence
and two fly away.
I should have practiced my crow call
with Grandfather, I think.

I see more lingering energy beneath me
puzzles of track marks, animal energies
captured in the dusty snow.
Peaceful deer hooves searching for food,
I feel their hunger.
Feisty red squirrels,
quick to act, leaving anxious energy in the road.

My dog is consumed by a scent
as I am intrigued by the snowy tracks.
Her nose is covered with the white powder
as she looks up at me.

The snow on the road hits the sun
and a crow print is revealed.
A three-prong track with a tree-like tail -
a child's drawing of a tree.
The energy is deliberate, strong.
"I am here," Crow says.

As my dog and I persist down the path
My legs begin to walk
slowly, with deliberate stride.
My feet feel the ground, my toes
are transformed into three prongs,
my heel into one.
I straddle the Earth.
My back is straight, my head high.
I am not alone.
The Ancient Ones walk with me.

My black coat grows into shiny black feathers
as I lift my arms
The sun meets me over the hill
and my wings spread out
to greet it, ready to fly.

Suddenly, I hear the familiar caws near me.
The three sentinels are waiting, calling, laughing
Watching from a maple -
They followed me on my Path.
They caw and laugh with me.

I tilt my head back, eyes closed in the sun
and laugh and caw
as they fly away for me.