Saturday, February 26, 2005

RAVEN AT PEZ MAYA

I.

At the water’s edge,
Raven, breathing in and out,
watches the sun rise
like a carnelian stone
over the violet waves.

On the beach silence
rivals the breeze, and rustling
palm trees sweep the sky
free of sleep, dust the cobwebs
from the back of Raven’s brain

as he greets the day,
meets his hunger on the sand.
A vague memory
of fish causes him to lift
his wings in expectation

as a boat passes
between Raven and the sun;
fishermen carving
the now radiant surface
of morning in Pez Maya.

II.

The sky is clear as
an eye, as Raven walking
slowly in the sand;
a morning rain that washed down
the turquoise stone of the sea

left him shivering
in feathers like the petals
of a deep black rose.
Raven is not a swimmer;
he skims the waves looking for

white bellies of fish
driven toward dunes by the moon’s
clockwork synergy,
swoops—beak poised to pinch a tail
of liquid silver and pitch

his salted treasure
on the sand. His appetite
opens like the mouth
of Whale, his pale comrade, as
Raven swallows his own life.

III.

Raven is waiting
on the top of a temple—
one more stone in this
archaeological site.
We have come in a boat through

the mangroves to see
this castle and that temple
left by the Mayans
to remind us that the end
of the game is drawing near.

Only Raven knows
the precise moment when he
will take down the sun,
the moon and the Stars, one by
one, put them back in the box

just like he found them,
and return to being white
as these limestone rocks.
His resignation rises
in the light of the full moon.