The Watery Sound a Raven Makes

The soul picks and threads
on a day bright with cloudlessness,
wind, and a cottonwood

trailing its fingers in feathery currents
void of water or rain, though a sally of ravens
caresses the air. Obsidian wings

flapping their skirts. Round dance in blue,
sky-filled quadrille. Inversion. Ellipsis:
trapeze without wire, without net.

Euclidian tip of a hat. Birds
entranced by tutelary gossip.
Mail box. Billboard. Garbage bin.

Their cackle and caw is rain
in the mind of the desert.
Uneven chatter of droplets.

Gardens thirsty and shy.
Large black birds
of middle-morning, circle.

Rock. Fence. Dirt. Wind.
Anguish of drought.
Passion of rain.