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