i.
ravens—the way their dark eyes reflect
your own death, how when you look up
through a hole in their wings you become
one of them—specters, the souls of wicked
priests, thought and memory blueblack
in body
Consider also their raucous teenage years,
the anxious excrement of loneliness
hoping for the one right bird to fly
alongside forever
Or ponder the baffling things they do—
the ways they smash up ants in their beaks
and smear them all over their lustrous
plumage like some healing balm
Consider how dim is our knowledge
of small things like birds
ii.
I bet you thought I was going to say “lilies”
basking in God’s given goodness, naked
as the day you were born, unashamed,
unencumbered no-spin-straight,
lazy as avocado toast slow morning
confident as Solomon
in shimmering new robes
But Jesus was always slanting
expectations, spinning koans
out of earthy air
I have come to launch a fire
into the midst of existence
What’s my purpose if everything
is already burning?
iii.
I was thinking myself a cubit taller,
imagining each inch’s upward stretch
when I looked up to see an unkindness
of ravens plowing their fields, whistling
their contentment with the day, mimicking
the soft laughter of farmhands at labor
They pushed each seed snugly into the
black dirt with passerine deftness
and flocked to help a fellow
raise a barn
Weary with the work of ingathering
they hunkered home to conspire
around a table so sturdy
it must have been built
by God
iv.
The bakers and bringers
of Elijah’s bread, perfecters
of the art of sourdough, are telling
jokes and everyone’s laughing
v.
Consider what you love
and how you spend
your finite hours
through the stark
eyes of those who
trust
life
like
these
dark
birds(Inspired by Luke 12:24–27, 49)
Robbie Taggart is a teacher and poet who delights in the holiness of the everyday.
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