Crow Angel
Their calls rip through the air after they’ve gone.
I’ve pieced together an opera cloak
from their fallen feathers,
lined it with clouds and swathes
of midnight sky. I fly by your window.
Can you hear my cries?
Days when birds abandon trees
I comb the grass for feathers.
My cloak is black as a vanished star,
You’ll see me from afar, above a crowded
opera house, soaring
in time with Exsultate, Jubilate.
Voices lift me to a ceiling
as frothy white as a wedding cake.
It is shining with the tears
of all the arias.
Days when birds abandon trees
I comb the grass for feathers.
Crows flap their wings in my chest.
I twirl in the space above you,
my torso a treble clef,
my legs quarter notes, darker than soot.
Join me in this shadow dance,
my cloak is large enough for two,
but if you doubt me, I’ll gather
some feathers for you – on those days
when birds abandon trees, I’ll comb the grass, for you.
***
The prompt this week at Read write Poem is to write a bop using donated lines as the refrain. My refrain comes from Jillypoet. Birds are a leitmotif in many of Jill’s poems, and I thank her for sharing her perspective on them with me.
By the way, Jill has two new poems up at Mannequin Envy.
*Alleluja – Exsultate, Jubilate is an aria by Mozart. If you haven’t heard Kathleen Battle sing it, listen here.
Balanced On the Edge 