The Raven
Brandon Cook
They say that the raven bridges worlds—
The seen and unseen, since one is not enough for any of us
They fly between the touched and the still waiting to be,
Between longing and ecstasy
And I find each morning, as my body calibrates like a lock’s tumbler falling into place,
The key of day turning us out of bed—
That we must become ravens, to be free
To fly on ebony wings
To accept two realities
And especially the great paradox—this life in the midst of dying
Somehow
To keep going, knowing there is no great reveal—
No secret that saves us from facing what must be
And that what makes it through is only what we knew deep down:
little moments, love, and choosing to open instead of close
No wonder the ravens love October trees and rest in them,
Accepting the great mystery of autumn rushing over everything like a river—
The turning
With no resistance to the water, trusting
That the beauty points to something unshatterable, unshaken,
even as the leaves fall
Even as we know we will be broken and busted open
That no one gets out alive, and that we can’t see the other shore
And yet knowing there are two worlds, because we know it like breath
We fly just beneath the shattering, both of our wings spread like Christ, drinking all of reality—
Life and death
Saying yes
To life
and to the unending,
To the immortal moment
In this world always trembling for takeoff