On the black wet branches of the linden, 
still clinging to the umber leaves of late fall, 
two crows land. They say, Stop, and still I want 
to make them into something they are not. 
Odin's ravens, the bruja’s eyes. What news 
are they bringing of our world to the world 
of the gods? It can't be good. More suffering 
all around, more stinging nettles and toxic 
blades shoved into the scarred parts of us, 
the minor ones underneath the trees. Rain 
comes while I'm still standing, a trickle of water 
from whatever we believe is beyond the sky.
The crows seem enormous but only because 
I am watching them too closely. They do not 
care to be seen as symbols. A shape of a wing, 
and both of them are gone. There was no message 
given, no message I was asked to give, only 
their great absence and my sad privacy 
returning like the bracing, empty wind
on the black wet branches of the linden.