Hide and Raven

Follow the raven to the glade
down the trail
from the hide where it lurked
alert for carrion
– now silhouetted black
against sun-dappled foliage,
a miniature guard tower.
The rush of air under dark wings
as it backtracks
above the forest canopy
sounds like breathless fugitives
or panting hounds.
The ravens croak, each to each,
and all around, water drops
patter down through branches
and frosty air
that makes my exhalations smoke,
and, at the end of the forked path,
another mossed abandoned hide.

An unkindness of ravens flies
from the broken oak within
the Pauline convent’s ruins where
the blond wood cross shines in the sun.