REQUIEM FOR THE RIVER

(Raven is feeling cheerier, has gone out to say his farewells to his buddies who hang out by the river.)

Raven is circling
raindrops over the river,
whooping and cackling:
it is the first rain in months,
and he's spinning his feathers

at the novelty.
Although the sign by the bridge
says "Don't throw garbage
in the river!", plastic bags
of trash swirl their way downstream:

a smorgasbord for
Raven, no ecologist,
to pick and choose from.
Pecking at the plastic scabs,
he stains the river with death.

PAJAROS

Raven is trying to get himself together for the trip south. In La Jornada he found a quote from St. John of the Cross that he hopes will bolster him in a place where no other members of his species will be available to crony around with:

"The conditions for a lone bird are five:

1. He must fly to the highest point.

2. He must not suffer for lack of company, nor for the lack of his own kind.

3. He must point his beak toward the sky.

4. He must not have a definite color.

5. He must sing softly."

Raven is not in agreement with point number 4, as he is big on Black Pride. Singing softly has never been part of his repetoire, but he's willing to give that a shot....

I think we're getting close to getting him off the ground again.

GOIN' SOUTH

Raven and I are packing our bags for Venezuela again. Raven doesn't have a whole heck of a lot to pack, but he is a little edgy that he's going to be away from the friendly confines of his habitat again. (The range for ravens stops more or less at the border of Mexico with Guatemala.) Our few months in Guayaquil, Ecuador, really bumbed the bird out. But venezuela is where the action is, so we're off to spend three months in the crosshairs....

COFFEE AND CANDIES

The Special Summit of the Organization of American States, hosted by Mexico’s President Fox—on his knees before the power of Washington—in Monterrey was so entertaining—sometimes so infuriating—that Raven and I did not squeeze in a blog during the 2 days of the conference.

As my blood pressure edged toward the normal range last night, I fell asleep before the hour of the 10 o’clock news. Raven was out catting around (can birds cat around?), but the kids woke me up to watch an interview with Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez—fun to watch him restraining himself from turning the sheep-eyed interviewer upside down and spinning him around. He ended with a few bars of “Mexico Lindo”….

Today’s La Jornada, Raven pointed out, has some very entertaining passages from Chavez’s contribution to yesterday’s sessions. Raven has been kind enough to translate them:

In the third and final work session Chavez said: “Latin America is at the gates of hell—it’s on the wrong track, and it’s necessary that the continent’s leaders assume their responsibility to revert this situation.

About the humanitarian fund which was proposed in the final declaration, he asked that it be financed by a part of the resources that Latin American pays for external debt and by money impounded from drug trafficking.

Finally, he expressed that his government was glad that corruption would be combated, and could not resist adding: “I have located various corrupt Venezuelans. I know where they live and that they have many millions of dollars that they took out of Venezuela. I can give you their addresses right now.”

In the press conference Chavez affirmed that a new leadership is forming in the continent: “No one should feel offended, but this new force, this whirlpool, in South America is stronger than the currents of the Amazon and the Orinoco.

In the dispute that emerged between the presidents of Chile and Bolivia (result of Chavez saying he was dreaming of going swimming at a Bolivian beach, then seconded by Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan and others), Chavez took Bolivia’s part: “Lagos squashed Bolivia”—and added with uncontainable sarcasm: “and he’s a socialist!” He recognized that the Chilean leader received a lot of internal pressure, but decided to continue putting his finger in the wound: “When Bolivia obtains the corridor to the sea that they’re demanding, I will offer Bolivia the resources necessary to construct the highway.”

And he finished by saying: “When I heard Ricardo Lagos say that Chile owed nothing to Bolivia, I got so mad that I demanded coffee and candies!”

Thanks, Rave.

RADIOATAQUE

Raven and I are watching and listening to a clip from yesterday's "Alo President", as Hugo Chavez comments about the horrendous results of the application of neoliberalsim/savage capitalism in Latin America--and in passing, in his own words, Chavez shoots an arrow from the bow of the indigenous leader Guaicaipuro, returning the blast of artillery that Condoleezza Rice unloaded at him last week.

*The story of Guaicaipuro is a model of heroism. The Spanish conquistadores, led by Diego de Losada (founder of the city of Caracas), waited until night to sneak into Guaicaipuro's village in the mountains and set fire to the houses. After they launched a fire bomb onto the roof of his house, Guaicaipuro was forced to open the door and go out. He held a club in his hand, and faced with the superiority in weapons and numbers of the Spanish, shouted:

"Come here, cowardly spaniards! See how the the last free man in this land dies.!"

"Sounds like Che Guevara in La Higuera, Bolivia, when the guy who was assigned to shoot him entered the room, and Che told him to pull himself together, that he was going to kill a MAN," is Raven's opinion.

This morning Chavez landed in Monterrey, here in Mexico, to give a piece of his humanistic philosophy and his mind to the Bush Gang. Although he has commented that for him to speak his mind in the 3 minutes allotted in the Cumbre Extraordinario (convoked by Bush to threaten the governments of Latin America with his belligerent manequeism) is a ridiculous proposition.

"I expect they will give more than three minutes to Bush, though", Raven sneers, "although in his case he could empty his cerebrum in less than 15 seconds."

And then we could flush its contents.

Meanwhile, we two birds will be awaiting the declaration of sovereignty on the part of Chavez--who said that Venezuela would not tolerate any interference on the part of the US, or any other foreign power--to be the high point of the summit in Monterrey.

A TRUE ILLITERATE

In keeping with the spirit of a government headed (figuratively speaking) by a president with an IQ at the point of being invisible, yesterday's shameful stand-up comedy routine by Condy Rice precipitated her being labeled "a true illiterate" by Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez (with an IQ clearly well into triple digits as well as a tongue which occasionally could etch glass.)

"I don't have another word to describe her, " Chavez said. "We'll send her a copy of the Robinson Method; let's see if she can learn to read and to respect the dignity of other countries; let's see if she learns a little bit about us. Yesterday she let loose with her shameful artillery against Venezuela and against our government, saying among other things that Chavez shouldn't oppose the referendum.

"In the first place, what the devil do you have to do with referenda in Venezuela? You have nothing to do with what happens here--this only concerns Venezuelans. Why hasn't she shown any concern for the electoral process in which Bush won, that went down in history as a dubious electoral process. If he's a legitimate president or not isn't our problem, and we're not involved in it, but they also don't have any reason to be involved in anything here."

Chavez also reminded us that Condoleezza Rice, the 12th of April of 2002, celebrated and applauded the coup, giving her blessing to the government of Carmona and the tyranny which began in Venezuela, "and now she says she's defending democracy. Go figure...."

When he's angry, Raven is even more direct than Chavez:

"I'd give her the bird."

CHICKEN FEED

Ralph Nader is talking about running again. He says that it would heps the Democrats, by forcing them to move to the left, instead of being virtually indistinguishable from Republicans:

"I would not do this if I didn't really want to defeat Bush," Mr. Nader said, calling the McCarthy era "chicken feed compared with what we have now."

"Seeking justice supersedes everything," he said, sounding more than ever like a candidate. "Without justice, we have nothing in this world. We can't have freedom without justice. That's what freedom is supposed to be."

"If the second paragraph sounds like a direct quote from Hugo Chavez, well maybe great minds think alike," opines Raven as he tucks into his scrambled eggs.

That's what my grandmother always said. Speaking of chicken feed, Rave, did you see in the paper yesterday that Goerge W's IQ is exactly half that of Clinton's?

"No, but you must remember that we birds are sensitive about measuring our intelligence by the standards of your species."

The bird brain, as usual, has a point....

GEOPOLITICAL RAPE

Every day Raven and I receive e-mails from a group we belong to called "Revolución Bolivariana". Normally all of the content is in Spanish, but today we were surprised to receive one from our companero "LeoLeo", with the following subject referenced:

History repeats itself: about the next geopolitical rape by the USA: Foreign Affairs Minister Roy Chadderton Matos tells Washington D.C. to stay out of Venezuelan domestic politics.

The news article referenced from V.headline.com is in English, so we are going to send it along as a follow-up to our comments on this site yesterday:


Foreign Minister (MRE) Roy Chaderton Matos has again accused the United States of interfering in Venezuela's sovereign political affairs ... the statement came after US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice urged President Hugo Chavez Frias to "demonstrate that he believes in democratic processes" by allowing a possible recall referendum on his rule to "go through unhindered, unfettered ...and then living up to the terms of it."

Chaderton Matos says the possibility of holding the vote is not up to President Chavez Frias but to an autonomous National Elections Council (CNE) which is charged with verifying the more than 3.4 million signatures that Chavez opponents say they've submitted to petition a revocatory referendum. He adds that it is rather "surprising" that Rice didn't understand that or that she must otherwise be ill-informed.

Pro-Chavez Frias parliamentarians have lodged complains over widespread fraud in the November 28-December 1 signature-gathering campaign with many duplicates, signatures from dead voters etc. Meanwhile anti-Chavez Frias groupings are piling pressure on the CNE to resume verifying the signatures, which were turned in three weeks ago ... it has been fraught with procedural delays and the Christmas-New Year holudays.

There has been a week of contentious exchanges between Washington D.C. and Caracas with Cuba-hostile Condoleezza Rice saying it was beyond her believe "why anybody who believes in democracy or wants people to believe that they believe in democracy would want to have anything to do with Fidel Castro."

Paranoid US officials have accused Venezuela and Cuba of cooperating to undermine democratic governments through funding and indoctrination; however Venezuela's MRE Chaderton Matos immediately cites that the United States (in its own questionable interests) had relations with several countries whose governments are indeed not democratically house-clean.

President Chavez Frias has also been quick to deny US statements such as Rice's last Wednesday claim that "Colombia has concerns about activities that Venezuela may have been involved in" ... an obvious reference to earlier (denied) claims that Venezuela has "allowed Colombia rebels to use Venezuelan territory as a springboard for attacks."

Chaderton Matos says: "If Dr. Rice harbors the naive intention of provoking a fight between Venezuelans and Colombians, we can assure her that there is no power capable of achieving this objective!"

Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel says Venezuela hopes to have a normal relationship with the United States despite the tensions but that under President Chavez Frias, relations with the United States have undoubtedly been strained over ties to Cuba and criticism of Washington's principal policy goal for Latin America ... a proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. However the rot really set in when Washington clearly took sides against democracy during the opposition-launched coup d'etat in April 2002 although they slammed into damage-control reverse as soon as US puppet dictator Pedro Carmona Estanga was himself overthrown by the overwhelming will of the people just two days later.

Nevertheless, Vice President Jose Rangel has taken on US Secretary of State Colin Powell following the latter's ill-chosen remarks on Venezuela's referendum which Rangel describes as "impertinent!"

Powell had pronounced, Thursday, that there will be a referendum vote against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez if signatures are approved to activate the consultation. Rangel says "It is an impertinency, of course ... but Powell says a very interesting thing -- if the signatures are gathered there will be a revocation referendum. Obviously yes."

"Anyway, it is not up to Mister Powell, the US State Department or the United States ... but the National Elections Council of Venezuela will decide."

Raven looks confused:

"Does this mean that Venezuela is not a U.S. colony?"

NEW GIG FOR CONDY: READING MINDS (FOR A PLATE OF LENTILS?)

“Hah! Now we have another member of the Bush Gang shooting her mouth off.”

Raven pours himself a cup of de-caf.

“This stuff has no get up and go to it.”

It isn’t supposed to get you up and going, guy. It’s just supposed to make you think you’re drinking coffee. I assume the big mouth in question is Condoleezza Rice?

“Who else? That Aunt Tomasina, embarrassment to black people everywhere, including me.”

So, what’s her beef?

“Ah, a wink at the Mad Cow….Nice. Listen to this from Yahoo News: ‘There are roles that Venezuela has played that have not been very helpful," Condoleezza Rice, US President George W. Bush's national security adviser, said in a briefing ahead of next week's Summit of the Americas in Mexico.’”

Helpful to whom? Where is it written that Venezuela is supposed to be the crying towel for the Bush Gang?

“Let me continue: ‘Rice cited tensions between Venezuela and neighboring Colombia as well as Chavez's good relations with Castro, who has outlasted successive US presidents for four decades despite pressure from Washington on his regime.'"

"'It is beyond me to understand why anybody who believes in democracy or wants people to believe that they believe in democracy would want to have anything in that regard to do with Fidel Castro, because that's the one truly undemocratic regime in the region,' Rice told reporters.’"

Hmmm. Seems like the one truly undemocratic regime in this region is The U.S.

“There’s more: ‘She also called on Chavez to abandon efforts to block a vote on cutting short his term after opposition leaders filed paperwork containing 3.4 million signatures gathered to support such a referendum.'"

"'The best thing that President Chavez could do at this point is to demonstrate that he believes in a democratic future for Venezuela by carrying out the wishes of his people in this regard,' said Rice.'"

I see. She is now a mind reader of what the Venezuelan people want. Apparently she thinks their votes in the ballot box do not represent their wishes?

“Well, remember who she’s working for. The US people’s votes in the 2000 election, when they elected Gore president, obviously were not considered.”

Good point, Rave. Is there more?

“Yeah: ‘She added that the United States was "working very closely" with the Organization of American States and non-governmental organizations that are "trying to ensure that this process goes off without interference.'"

Gee, guy, how much is she charging for the mind reading sessions? Seems to me the only interference in the democratic process in Venezuela has come from the US….Is that it?

“On the aporrea.org site they indicated also that when she compared the political situation in Venezuela with that of Peru a few years ago. She used this as an example of how with the help of the Organization of American States a country can come out victorious from a difficult political period.”

What a riot! Not only does she read the minds of entire countries (without, of course, speaking their language), but she also does stand up comedy. The president of Peru has been changing his cabinet every 15 minutes—expelling suspected lesbians and anyone else who doesn’t agree with his World Bank style of managing the country. His approval rating, the last time I checked, was 10 percent—otherwise referred to as “in the toilet”. Even the people opposed to Chavez put his rating at 40 percent—fairly phenomenal in Latin America after 5 years in office….

“Well, at least Danny Glover and a bunch of other African Americans are in Venezuela this week to redress the balance. They are talking about the US campaign of disinformation against Venezuela.”

I noticed that. They also indicated that the spirit of Martin Luther King was alive and well in Caracas.

“Good place to be black. Too bad my habitat stops at the border with Guatemala…”

THE CHOCOLATE BOMBER

“Geez, those guys are idiots.”

Raven turns away from the t.v. screen in disgust.

I wasn’t watching, Rave. Which idiots?

“Some FBI jokers—now running the show at the Mexico City airport—decided that there was a bomb in a guy’s suitcase that was padlocked. So there was a big hoo hah and it turned out that the suitcase contained coffee and chocolate.”

Odd that coffee and chocolate would arouse the suspicion of metal detectors. Or maybe those are now typical bomb ingredients. Does the C-4 in C-4 plastic explosives stand for coffee or for chocolate? And who was this chocolate bomber?

“A gringo tourist. Wouldn’t you know? Tall, blond, crewcut—clearly a dead ringer for Osama Bin Laden.”

A very busy guy, that Osama. And omnipresent, like God. Trips to the IMSS clinic for dialysis don’t slow him down from training guerrillas among the five star hotels on Isla Margarita, Venezuela, and kidnapping the aquifers in Paraguay—and now terrorizing the Mexico City airport with chocolate bombs. This is starting to sound like a cut-rate version of “Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?”.

“Good detective work, gumshoe.”

And in other news?

“Just the usual. Twenty five convicts were broken out of a supposed maximum security prison in Michoacan.”

Twenty five?

“I guess they figured it would be as easy to break 25 guys out of jail as the 5 drug dealers they were supposed to break out.”

Apparently they were right. And where are they now?

“Some of the non-drug dealers have been scooped up already. Who knows about the others. They’re probably not at the Mexico City airport, though.”

Unless they are checking the passengers….

MORE U.S. INVASIONS

Raven has crumbs on his beak this morning.

“Rave, you ate the rest of the rosca!”

Raven glances around the room.

“Who, me? Nah. It must have been those 3 wise guys who finished it.”

Ay, wise guys. They’re not supposed to be mafiosos, but Wise Men. Kings. It was pretty tasty, though. And, as the guy from Alcoholics Anonymous who sold it to me pointed out, it was for a good cause. As for the 3 wise guys, who might they be?

“I’ll give you a hint as to who they aren’t: George Bush (father and/or son—take your pick), Dick Cheney and Vicente Fox.

Raven discreetly polishes his beak, effectively disposing of the crumbs from the rosca.

I wouldn’t have picked any of them. The biggest sucker, at the moment (por ahora, in the words of Hugo Chavez after his military coup failed in February of 1992), is clearly Vicente Fox.

“Because he fell on his face while hitting the piñata in Los Pinos?”

No, Rave. because he has allowed the FBI to invade Mexico. They are crawling like cockroaches through all the airports—especially in Mexico City—terrorizing all the Mexican passengers (Monday night the president of the Mexican Senate, who was flying to Los Angeles, was practically strip searched!), and canceling flights (costing the Mexican carriers a big heap of money.) Fox has tossed Mexico’s sovereignty out the window, and even said that the presence of FBI agents, bomb-sniffing (and no doubt butt-sniffing) dogs as well as the flotsam and jetsam from the US Embassy, in the airports was “normal”.

“If human rights violation are the rule of the day, then I suppose he’s right.”

Raven is poking around in the refrigerator.

“Don’t we have anything to drink besides water?”

What do you want, guy: coca cola? You’d better grab the water while you can. The Senate of Paraguay just approved the invasion of US troops in the Triple Frontera (with Brazil and Argentina)—they key to this idiocy is the announcement that they will be joint maneuvers with the Paraguayan navy!

“I’ll say. Isn’t Paraguay—like Bolivia—landlocked?”

So far as I know it is. This time the US believes that Osama Bin Laden has taken control of the world’s largest fresh water aquifer—and they’re going to take it back from him? So start guzzling the H2O, guy.

“Advice taken. Not only that, but the new US primary school geography text, “Introduction to Geography”, by David Norman, indicates that in the middle of the 1980s the US and the UN took control of the entire Amazon region because it was located “in one of the poorest regions of the world and surrounded by irresponsible, cruel and authoritarian countries.”

Irresponsible, cruel and authoritarian? Amazing description of the Bush administration. Now they are changing the maps even before they invade the countries. And your average US citizen, who doesn’t even know on which continent Brazil is located, wouldn’t know the difference. So we’ve got the FBI in Mexico, the US Army in Iraq, Afghanistan, Paraguay, Bolivia....

“The force they sent in October to pulse the peace when The Gringo was booted out of the presidency is still there?”

Evo Morales says yes, and that they’ve killed indigenous folks in the mountains.

“Mexico, Iraq, Afghanistan, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia (of course!)....”

And undoubtedly they are dreaming of a beach in Venezuela.

“I assume you’re referring to Hugo Chavez and Jimmy Carter dreaming of a beach in Bolivia?”

I might be, but the latest round of accusations that Castro, Chavez and Morales are buzzing guerrillas all around the continent to destabilize “democratically elected governments” sounds like the US plans to have another go at overthrowing the democratically elected president of Venezuela.

“We ARE coming up on the second anniversary of the US financed 47 hour coup.”

Last year they were too busy bombing the shit out of Baghdad to invade Venezuela. This year they have more troops, and because Iraq’s oil production is still in the toilet, more incentive to go after Venezuelan oil.

“Dogfaces in Maracaibo in April?”

The only thing that surprises me about the agenda of the Bush Gang of Petrocriminals (to which we must now add Aguacriminals) is that almost nobody else seems to regard their invasions and other terrorist acts as being the least bit irregular.

“Who was it who said: ‘There’s a better universe next door; let’s go.’?”

I believe it was e.e.cummings, Rave.

“You think he was right?”

HAPPY HOLIDAYS: State-Induced Psychological Terror

Raven and I are very busy these days, but we want to say just how horrified we are at the Bush Adminstration's (Petrocrimnals') policy of continuing to terrorize the US public. The latest caper of canceling Air France Christmas flights from Paris to LA--although Air France found absolutely nothing out of the ordinary in regard to passengers on any of the flights--on the basis that terrorists were going to fly to LA and perpetrate an act of terrorism, was another turn of the screw in the campaign to keep folks in the US scared shitless.

We will say it again: here are two regimes in the world that need to be changed ASAP: those of the US and Israel. They are without a doubt the most dangerous, ruthless and cynical regimes in history. Atilla, Genghis Khan, Hitler and Stalin had nothing on these guys.

Raven: "Give them the bird for the holidays. Tar and feather them, too. I will gladly donate my tailfeathers for this project!"

(For those of you who read Spanish, LA JORNADA has an excellent article on this topic today: www.jornada.unam.mx)

Raven and I have been doing some hard travelling. His wings are a little worse for wear, and I am hobbling with an ankle support--thanks to Guayaquil taking a final shot at me before we flew off back to Mexico.

But we're still watching what's going on out there--Bush wants to create paramilitaries in Iraq: Hello El Salvador, Hello Iran-Contra Scandal, Hello Colombia, Hello Chiapas--not to mention the big bummer of Viet Nam! Right Rave?

"You didn't hear it here first, but we'll keep saying it: US past due for a regime change!"

It may go down the drain into that good night, along with the dollar--nosediving against the Euro and the Yen, OPEC threatening to switch to Euro only payments (Uh ah, Chavez no se va.)

RAVEN TOURS LA GRAN SABANA

Raven discovers
that the fort he visited,
El Zamuro, means
vulture; here they are very
prominent in the landscape.

He is invading
their territory: winging
over waterfalls,
swooping down on the thatch-roofed
villages; he is whooping,

shrieking his song
in honor of the tepuis—
table mountains
spread with their feast of secrets
served up by hermetic clouds.

Predator he is:
despite noble intentions
of myth and spirit,
he’s ever on the lookout
for victims of his capers.

Buzzing the capped heads
of waders in the river,
Raven is martial
as the red jasper under
their feet; dodging the arrows

the indigenous
artisans fire at him to
demonstrate their wares,
what, after all, does he care?
He is in his element:

The gold uncontrolled
water crashing on the slabs
imitates his laugh,
the mountains his wingspread
and the grasslands his feathers

ruffling in the breeze.
His beady eyes, diamonds
shining in water,
are carbonized creation
dreaming of becoming stars.


Santa Elena de Uairen
Venezuela

RAVEN'S EYE VIEW, FORTIN EL ZAMURO

Perched on the little
fort's roof, Raven listens to
a guide recounting
stories of the place to a
gaggle of high school students.

Raven has flown here
from the river to hear what
goes on when humans
think they have a bird's eye view,
but he hears nothing startling.

He takes for granted
his privileged position,
and wouldn't trade it
for a rung higher up on
the food chain. He knows the trade

offs well enough to
feel satisfied with his lot
of mobility.
The relativity of
historical consciousness

doesn't bother him:
his is a spirit moving
back and forth in time;
banking his wings cloudward,
or diving down hard for his prey.

He changes his mind
at the drop of a feather;
this is the secret
of Raven: he spins the world
on his axis of caprice.

Ciudad Bolivar
Venezuela

RAVEN IN THE POSADA AMOR PATRIA

Raven is circling
the chandeliers, searching in
their crystals for his
eyes, the shadows of his wings
dancing like black diamonds.

Above the hammock
swaying its pendulum of
Orinoco dreams,
Raven imitates a flute
piping in counterpoint to

the cathedral bells
groaning the hour: five o'clock
in the afternoon,
time to light the chandeliers,
not for nothing called spiders

in Spanish, holding
in their interstices the
webs of fugitive,
but very real spiders
spinning in Raven's dark light.

Raven's is manic
light, creation reflected
over and over
in peeling mirrors whose scales
silver off and disappear

as the light withdraws
into his vital organs.
He is Minotaur
crouching in his labyrinth,
Theseus tracking himself

down, Ariadne's
string dribbling from his own beak.
And still he is lost,
unable to break out of
the egg of unconsciousness,

spread his wings and speak
in rational language.
The bells shout again,
marking another hour in
Raven's crystal conundrum.

Ciudad Bolivar
Venezuela

RAVEN AT THE FINE ARTS MUSEUM, CARACAS, VENEZUELA

Raven is watching
the photographs, waiting for
the crocodiles to
leave their two-dimensional
circumstance, and play with him.

Raven sees his face
in the glass—of jeep trails in
la Gran Sabana;
his is the delirium
presupposing creation

of the earth itself:
in the mountainous darkness
he navegates back
in time to starless, moonless
nights, even days without sun.

How did he miss this
sacred place on the planet
when he scattered stars?
A flat mountain top calls him
to enter the foggy shot

the photographer
has carved from primeval mud.
He tries touching down
on the grass, but the glass stops
his feet in their tracks, and makes

Raven feel anger
ruffling his feathers like wind.
In the mirror of
time well past and time present,
he shivers like the future.

RAVEN PACKS HIS BAGS AGAIN

Raven has returned,
reluctantly, to his digs
in the grey city.
His image is on the door,
but no birds come calling—just

a tiny kitten,
crying in the dark hallway.
Raven is having
nothing of paternity—
adoptive or otherwise.

He is poised to pack
his bags, figuratively,
for Venezuela,
and preens in the mirror to
put his best feathers forward.

Soaring once again
over the Andes, he will
touch down in the dream
of Bolivar, turn loose his
raucus laugh in Caracas.

Guayaquil, Ecuador

RAVEN IN THE FOG

Raven is flying
tired—and without instruments—
through dense mountain fog.
He can barely see his beak
in front of him, but he hunts

for more volcanoes,
needing to see in their mouths
his own reflection.
Black is the color of all
energies combined, he says.

With his wings drooping,
he makes a shaky landing
in snow at the rim
of a crater, peers inside,
and sees absolutely nothing.

Guaranda, Ecuador

RAVEN ENTERS THE WATERFALL FROM WHERE HE IS NOW

Raven is slicing
the water with his wings while
it falls from the cliff,
and keeps falling, forever.
His is this precious instant

repeating itself
in a prism of silver
threads stitching the stones
to the trees to the morning.
His dance becomes the roaring

perpendicular
drop as he dives, beak forward
into the black pool
of volcanic reflection,
erupts in cosmic laughter.


Ba?os de Agua Santa,
Ecuador