What do we see outside
except a canopy of ebony wings,
garlands of feathery smoke
moving on blackened water?
Against the sketchy light
it looks like a cancer patient
showing us their fifth x-ray.
The troubled lungs, highlighted:
a cage of full-grown crows
in a space too small for them
and anxious for routes to escape,
fanning their jittery wings
against imprisoning walls.
Something screamed in fear,
locked inside us, watching.
Resistance is useless, absurd,
trapped in something we are.
We saw their work when free:
the substantial killing
along the state route. They strutted
around the roadkill, plucking
at bits of the dying creatures,
supple as the playful light.
When will it end? we ask.
And why did it ever begin?
We are the understanding they lack.
So we took them deep inside us.
_
Royal Rhodes is a retired educator. He taught courses in global religions and on death & dying for almost 40 years. His poetry and art collaborations have been published by The Catbird [on the Yadkin] Press in North Carolina.
© 2023, Royal Rhodes
Halfway Down the Stairs 