Welcome to The RavensPerch

A. In the mid 1950’s, when only 10 at Christmas my parents’ gift: a black & white TV star’s Lone Ranger Cowboy outfit that included his trademark black face mask hiding the actor, Clayton Moore’s eyes. His mask, emblem of Western law and order. Mexican American...

Should I ask why are you holding on or how are you holding on? I’m sure as the cold rain comes that your spine gets stiff I know your stem hurts from the morning frost and the feeble fall sun fails to provide enough warmth to ease the pain. I know you long for the...

One low bush blueberry In bloom when I reach The peak so less time Marveling at the sun Slowly closing her eye as I celebrate this sweet fruit’s seed rooting in the duff blown into crack of granite after a bird (filling up On blueberries below) Shat the seed perfectly...

I’ve so come to admire the lichen Colonizing the barren rock planets And making them fertile for moss Then blueberries inside crevices That, in the last light, I gaze back and forth between the first stars and these galaxies in granite I’ve overlooked my whole...

Because your photograph because your face is a disguise I can’t know what you feel eyes focused elsewhere, mouth half-closed Thoughts invisible date and occasion unknown A tatted lace collar on a gray serge dress or maybe the dress was blue or violet or even puce I...

Empty bird feeder starts banging, keeps banging against my window. News report: troops at borders. Birds and I share bad dreams.

The Oregon sandhill crane can rise on a column of air up to twelve thousand feet. From Mount Hood’s summit that crane could peer down and spy my fingers dancing sexily across this keyboard, but any self-respecting bird can find better things to do, and besides, I’m no...

The crystal slope of a glacier a cave full of low afternoon sunlight the slender toe prints of a pregnant vixen meltwater from a snow woman the first crocus on the north side of the road All these years I’ve been noticing this earth but March will still...

September, and the world is in its yellow period. Giant sunflowers bend over us like benign ogres. A riot of rough oxeye and goldenrod in the fields. Final conflagration before the cold creeps in. Goldfinches have found the purple spikes of anise hyssop, now gone to...

Sounds like a small burrowing animal that might make its home in far Tasmania or the Faroe Islands, with a long spindly tail and small pink feet with curving claws. Or perhaps a tiny forest under glass, the trees wizened and diminutive like the bound feet of girls...

It has been said that when Saint Ambrose was an infant, sleeping openmouthed in his crib, a swarm of bees flew into his mouth. Whether they stung him or flew out again is not recorded in the annals of the saints. It was also said he would become an orator with honeyed...

After brushing my long hair, I like to toss the redundant strands caught in the bristles out into the wind for birds to gather up and knit into their nests, imagining myself a valuable if inert addition to their lives. Once I saw a long strand woven into a...

How many hours I’ve scratched at dirt Or picked off pieces from dried leaves Or traced your name out on my skirt Or scolded God through handkerchiefs Or told you what I did that day Or read from poems you would read Or prayed from prayers that you would pray Or...

I’ve checked the pasture horses from the fence. They like to watch me when I clean my paws But will not have me near them ever since That time I scratched one of them with my claws. I’ve walked the porch three times—still, no one’s there And nothing has been added to...

He’d seen himself led out into the yard: Tripping, struggling—dragged beside the guard. He’d seen his own feet stumble on the stairs. He’d seen those other two bound in their snares— Black bags over their heads tied off with rope. He’d felt the noose choke out his...