I Have Been Calling Them

 

For a long time  I have been calling them   without reply.

I smell them in the DNA hills of my boreal bed

I see them waiting on a black forest coat of male arms

I hear them arguing, tongues flying in Native winds

I rub their dark feathers dipped in a dry Alberta stream

As I write in the rocky darkness to talk with them.

 

For a long time  I have been calling them  without response.

And after I saw the twirling Precision helicopter crash

After I ran downhill into the smell of crushed metal and dreams

After I touched a cold firefighter’s blue-winged lips

with the erratic cry of my breath, then I called them again

while walking alone in logged woods  and for once

the giant ravens  croaked and lifted me

as we listened to our breath alight in tall evergreens.

 

 

 

Vivian Demuth