The scripture of their dark raptures

Crow on the fence, rain will go hence.
Crow on the ground, rain will come down. ~Anonymous

What Crows Know

They recite the names of storms yet to be borne. Kinfolk of sky,
they read spaces between clouds and summon the scripture of their dark raptures. Threshwater, Oblivionyx, Negridamien, Blackanthra.

By croak and hiccough come wingless wind and runted rain.
The underbellow subtext simmers amphibious before the dying
of the day, throttles what seeks shadow and margin yet untaken.

Huddled on a branch of bent song, they conspire to congress, sip obsidian nepenthe, distribute the baubled spoils of a twilight strewn glimmering across the new fainted weave of evening, corvus corax notwithstanding.

This they know too well. The slow descent of colorlessness, of things bereft of what makes them what they are when the night retreats and the sun has its way with all that would dare pass brazenly beneath it.

Ravenlore and magpie are known to them. Starling and stealthward feline that would navigate by a wheel of spilled light above them when the moon is late and Polaris is impaled to the evernether of the cricketed abyss beyond.

And they know you. Do not think that while at your window they disregard such offered pause. They know as you do what business you are about and settle for your suspensions while they in turn study the angle of your gaze from theirs.

Give them this. They will leave gifts of cobbled corncob, plastic hairpins, cat’s eye marble, and the necessary tools of their small tinkerings. They will astonish you with their cleverness. What crows know, you may never claim.

For as they know the names of storms yet unvisited, they know also the secret names of God. They were there when the divisions were made. They were witness to all that did and did not happen. And they know precisely with whom to take up all of that with.

What has been taken from them, they will not reacquire. What they have taken, they will not return. What crows know so the children of tantrummed skies know as well. This is their understanding. Be forewarned. None of this has anything to do with you.

Joseph Gallo
May 24, 2006