Blacker than ebony he is, blacker than a winter night.
If night is black, he is blacker – a shadow in the darkness.
And he lives beneath his own black cloud – a word-cloud
of old cliches and unforgiving slurs that we have given him:
sign of evil, darkest omen, blackest cloud and symbol of despair –
a messenger of war, of anguish, conspiracy, and death.
But we paint him blacker than he is, by far.
More intelligent than other birds, he is adept at
facial recognition and skilled in making future plans.
He scorns the wind in playful acrobatic stunts,
and points at things if need be – just as we do.
And yet we feel no kindred sense with him –
though evil lies perhaps not within his avian brain,
but in the dark and troubled fears of his beholders.
He is black but he is dressed in formal suit –
black is beautiful and he is black, made so
from coal-sheened tail to onyx eye.
He is a work of art and voice that mocks us all
with hollow croaking calls that resonate
through every concrete canyon –
and echo, then, like laughter,
down the endless, far-receding, cliffs of time.
