Flight of mind
The difference between crows and ravens is far more than size. In flight crow tails look like fans, ravens’ more like spades…
Spade plunges into earth closely supervised by a big black bird perched on a headstone.
Did not see them as a child; since then they’ve gathered in the Adirondacks, soaring against blue over tall peaks…dark flying silhouettes simultaneously still and stir my heart, life and death both at once.
I don’t think of myself as a creature of light. I crave the corvids’ dark energy…it speaks of mysterious depth as light can never do.
Brave little birds mob them, darting and pecking, drive them away from nests and nestlings.
Nestling in the dark tresses of the Queen of Phantoms, they rise to fly with her to battlegrounds, devour plentiful spoils, prizing, prying dead eyes from sockets, seeking second sight…one day will they pluck my eyes, allowing me to see their eldritch world where they lift wraiths to highest reaches to work mad magic?
Unlike crows’ caws, jagged croaks issue from throats, beaks, speaking to us if we can discern sounds originating past shores of time.
Loyal corvids mate for life, outlasting vows of many mortals…
Two of them perch on Odin’s shoulders, bringing word and vision from afar; Odin knows how to listen, look…also beloved, feared by far flung native tribes of the Americas…guarding the Tower of London, revered by Irish, Scots and Welsh…they bear good omens and bad, one raven means bad luck or death, two together signify good fortune, celebration, diverse meanings read from many numbers…
Their flying forms are mirrored in the shadows of our brains. They are our kin, majestic in their bearing. Watch them in flight to see the most telling difference twixt them and crows:
Crows flap. Ravens soar.
~ Wry Welwood
10th of May 2022.
“I don’t think of myself as a creature of light.” is a line written by J.D. Harms in his poem No Sudden Moves, the inspiration of his most recent Saturday prompt.