I.
Sky alive with raggedy ravens, one swelled
to a massive Mesozoic shadow-bird, beak
open in a croak so deep, so raucous, it jolts
vibrations along telephone wires, ripples
fields into waves like a sea, twists trees
into whirligigs, one tall trunk a totem
pole of bulging eyes stacked one upon
another, all the better to see you with, my dear.   

II.
Some things  you can’t unsee, as when the nurse
calls late at night to say they somehow tore
Mom’s leg open lifting her into bed. Ambulance
summoned, we rush to the hospital. The amount
of blood lost from the foot-long gash, its depth, 
surges shock through my body, shivering
from belly outward like the scream
I want to unleash.              

~ Inspired by Charles E. Burchfield’s Telegraph Music, 1949