Field Notes #4: Fish Crow Calling
You are reading the weekly poetry newsletter, "Entangled Worlds: A Field Guide to Hope in a World Unraveling." Read more about it here.
Oh you wanderers, you resistors, you artists! Look how the autumn sun shines upon our path, glinting upon quartz and mica. Look how the golden hunter’s moon shines upon the billowing smokestacks. Yes, smokestacks. For when you wander these guideless paths, you have to fight. When you waylark, you forage hope where you may, for such a rare flower withers in poisoned soil.
That is the paths we tread here together, dearest waylarks - paths toward better worlds, always just beyond the next bend. The day around us darkens, yes, always. But there are paths through the deepening dark. There are companions here ahead and behind. We duck under dark thickets of mountain laurel pregnant with seeds. The world around us closes its tired eyes but what dreams may come then. What strange meanderings of light reveal themselves in the creeping shadows. What new worlds are revealed when the old one crumbles around us. Take heart in the autumn light and the fish crow’s call. Take them with you to light a safe path through the dark. Allons-y.
Fish Crow Calling
The fish crow
calls
and tugs in
its net of falling light.
The net tumbles
and spills,
rays splashing onto
the golden shallows
in the canopy,
wriggling shadows
sinking into
emerald depths.
The crow hunts
with black eyes
among its spilled catch.
There!
Scurrying free,
hope dwindling.
It plunges
into a hidden crevice
and waits
for the rippling splintered sea
of spring.
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