Well Bottom Blues

Sitting as an old man sometimes must as if waiting for a bus, I picked up a book I keep handy, 250 Poems A Portable Anthology, which I let fall open to pick me a poem and found a new favorite Crow poem.

CROW LAW
            Linda Hogan
                p. 1993*
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The temple where crow worships
walks forward in tall, black grass.
Betrayal is crow's way of saying grace
to the wolf
so it can eat
what is left
when blood is on the ground,
until what remains of moose
is crow
walking out
the sacred temple of ribs
in a dance of leaving
the red tracks of scarce and private gods.
It is the oldest war
where moose becomes wolf and crow,
where the road ceases
to become the old forest
where crow is calling,
where we are still afraid.


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* from _Book_of_Medicines_, 1993