by Pavel Chichikov
They carry the sun
In a stretcher of stone
Each holds the litter
Their rook's eyes glitter
Heavy and round
As barley-gold bread
The corpse of the sun
They let touch ground
Where shall we put it?
Their voices rattles
Rough in the gourds
Scratching like gravel
They scrape with talons
Plough with their beaks
The sun hangs down
In a dusk blue streak
Each makes a channel
Four deep wounds
With the sun in the middle
On sacred ground
The black rooks chant
Make the sun spin
Deeper and deeper
Through a hole in the wind
They cover the sun
With soil they asperge
Crudely with claws
Descanting a dirge
We are the black flight
Our feathers shine moonlight
But come the new moon
We'll be unseen
We fly in the dark
Are never revealed
We have buried the sun
And we are concealed
They buried the sun
But it spun and spun
Beneath in the darkness
The gold-heavy one
It spun and it spun
Heavy and deep
While only the hours
Stood over to weep
Only the hours
The midnight, the black
To beg for a sunrise
Light to come back
Visit Pavel's website at Grey Owl Press.
