Rolly Kent is a joyful and sympathetic witness to the lives of the people and animals he loves, and to the natural world we all share. These masterful poems glow with clarity and wit, drawing the reader in and not letting go.

-Hilma Wolitzer

WATER

Around five-thirty in the morning

two ravens are prattling back and forth.

I’d rather not listen, but when they start

saying Water Water Water, I get out of bed—

what kind of ravens are these? I watch them

sail across the pale dawn then fly

back and forth from the ponderosa pine

on Briarcliff, to the eucalyptus

on Tuxedo, then back and forth again,

like reference librarians checking one

source against another, assessing the facts,

nodding their heads until the air itself

seems smitten with Water. By nature I’m

a doubter; I lie back down, troubled.

Is water the answer to everything?

What is the answer to water? Is it

the shore? Or is water the answer to water?

But then a third raven gets involved

and the three of them fly to some

houses in the canyon where the sun

has still not come and the people there have

questions that are the most human questions

ever, and those birds answer them

perfectly. They call back and forth; then

the sound grows faint. And yet when I hear it

repeated from far away, what they

are saying seems so clear, even obvious.


© Rolly Kent