"For the Ravens" - a poem

So I'm in this class called Graduate Performance Analysis.  We read theory about theater and performance and talk about it.  Sometimes, we have guest artists who join us and do the same.

This week, we had a reading followed by an assignment to "drift" around, take in our campus surroundings, notice the unnoticed, and be all poetic about it.  At the graduate level, we are writing deeply inspiring poetry.  DEEPLY inspiring.

Somewhere, my middle school self is laughing and crying at the same time.  And writing about it.

Here is my very serious, very inspiring, very poetical, poety poem.  It's for the birds.

...

“For the Ravens”

i like to think i’m on a first-name basis with all the ravens.

we talk sometimes.  me in one, them in ninety-nine different voices.

sometimes with a nutcracker-y glottal call.

i imagine there isn’t much of a bounty in terms of eyeballs for them to eat—

and i’ve none to spare—

but we bond often over shared cafeteria food.

the salmon pleases them best.

their feet tell me so as they saunter towards me with diagonal non-subtlety.

their beaks will feast but never say.

surprisingly shy, they are.  we share this.

they don’t want to be noticed, but i notice them.

THEY are my favorites.

at eight in the morning they are the same size as airplanes in the sky.

but they are more beautiful

and speak more clearly.

(nevermore has never been a part of their vocabulary, nor do they intend it to ever be.

they appreciate poe but have more variety to their tales than he.)

the ravens are time and space for me here.  and, truly, they make better use of both than the rest of us:

they are always outside. 

they waste nothing. 

they hop and skip and frolic. 

once, i even saw one galumphing.

humans i have seen do this even less. 

well, someone. 

once. 

it almost doesn’t count.

count the ravens? 

can’t.

they are endless.  Endless.

Yes.  See.  I have forgotten.

Their name is Matthew.  All of them.