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And There I Found The Raven
By Oscar S. Cisneros
Ripped right from my slumber by a muffled screeching scream
I awoke beneath a willow by a slowly tinkling stream.
And there I found the raven with a ruby in its beak
And queer look in his eye as if it were about to speak.
Fear ran through my heart as I heard his mocking cries;
They say that those ravens like to feast on human eyes.
And here one stood before me with a claw clutching a gem,
A ruby dark but clear right from a queen's diadem.
Wivestales on the mind, Poe's poem gave me pause,
He looked at me intently and scratched the bark with shiny claws.
Morbid were my thoughts, as black as were his feathers,
When he looked at me again and flew off into the ether.
I followed him a ways as he flew over the gates
Of a long abandoned mansion, some crumbling estate.
He landed on a birdbath and peeped about before he groomed.
"Curious," I thought, "such care for retched plumes."
He peered into the water where ripples crossed reflection.
For a moment he seemed sculpted, like some avian perfection.
"Strange," I thought again, thinking back on what I'd heard:
The tales of all this evil from this proud and noble bird.
I heard a woman's voice, so sweet it seemed to me,
Matched only in its sweetness by the woman I did see:
Pale, so pale, and soft; hair the darkest black
Like the feathers of the raven, indeed a perfect match.
She looked upon the raven her eyes again so sweet.
He flew right up before her and laid the ruby at her feet.
Fingers ran through feathers in some fleeting kind caress.
Shattered were the wivestales by this raven's dark noblesse.
