Three crows in a winter sky mean …
what they’ve always meant. Late day,
and they’re rowing down air currents
toward the naked trees. A hillside
swallows the sun. A tree limb’s filament
flickers and goes dark. Three winged
silhouettes caught between illumination
and the milky sky going gray.

If I put on another mind I know
Apollo will return bearing poultices
and poetry in his flaming car.
But I’m standing on Algonquin ground.
These crows are crows and shadows
lengthen until the trees seem to weave
the snows together. Half a year ago,

you stood here beside me, our shadows
flat and accurate to height. You pointed
to the excavated site. Old Indian artifacts,
you said, old myths we’ll mortify
by digging up their bones. Half a year,
and you’re gone now beneath the earth for good.
What more must I know to know
a sun poised on the horizon
shines on two worlds, not one.

So little of the world’s learning readies us
for joy or sorrow. When one piercing cry
from a black bird clarifies the pines,
two caws bracket the wind’s ellipsis,
and three crows in a milky sky glimmer
like reversed stars from the other world.