Upside Down and Flying
I walked down our lane to get
the mail in wet November.
The news was full of disasters,
the fog tight as a hairnet.
Then a raven tucked and rolled
in the sparse yet snowy rain.
His wings flapped, flapped then folded
as he rolled and righted again.
A tree’s few leaves were buttons
on the shredded yellow season.
Ice lidded the eyes of potholes.
The bird was a black loophole
in the late light and his call—
a conceit both watery and crystal—
was the playful reversal
of a constricting universe.
He tucked and rolled the alpine
air seven times, like a line
of cursive that unfurled
across the wet-white world.
The bird overturned a day
that seemed bleak and bare
when it rolled a seven in its play
and made light of heavy air.
Read two poems by Joseph Powell also appearing in Terrain.org.
Header photo by Marcin Perkowski, courtesy Shutterstock.