Crow Who Controls Rain

Crow Who Controls Rain
© Surazeus
2024 04 06

I should not be frightened that the glass moon 
makes noises strange as bells in vale of bones 
as if tall trees notice I am alive 
so I circle time with transparent words 
to encode history with secretive keys 
that invent the future we want to live. 

Holding light of rain in their ancient hands, 
our mothers walk along the river shore 
to give their children treasures of the past 
till they wander lost with the fractured moon 
in the wrong country where rain never weeps 
because when we see them they disappear. 

My sorrow-shrinking bones that crack with fear 
give silence to faceless strangers who seek 
gift of water from the great windless plain 
where only wooden wheels of time are left 
no more to roll toward the last lemon grove 
where we try to free our spirits from time. 

Time doubles with each day that slips away 
with sudden shock of naked ecstasy 
when we dive into lake of screaming eyes 
then crouch beside the tangled bush of vines 
to eat raspberries black as eyes of death 
who gives us seeds we plant in wordless hearts. 

Someone may haunt me with arrogant love 
that bothers me how tree roots eat my heart 
till ancient mothers weep for the drowned god 
who floats just out of reach on lake of fire 
because their hands wring our frail bodies dry 
though we argue with the ones we love. 

The tears of other people drown my brain 
with heart-breaking memories that are not mine 
though I keep reaching to achieve the moon 
but find its apple glowing in my hand 
which stings my heart with sorrow of desire 
when I consume strange words people express. 

Because I decide to name everything 
with tangled breath of tongue-conceiving hope 
my heart will reincarnate desperate wind 
translating cries of people suffering pain 
to beautiful songs that enchant the crowd 
when I play the lost lyre of Mercury. 

Now I will tell you this fantastic tale 
that you should not believe was ever real 
about messiah sleuth of clever wiles 
born in dire poverty from the mute girl 
who teaches him to see beyond the world 
till he becomes the Crow who controls rain.