All night the ravens

releasing

a black crying.

They seem to hold worlds

we can never touch.

Something akin to wisdom.

Not perfection.

That doesn’t have any life in it.

It’s the woods where the breathing

moves

where Night

well, you know.

At some point you have to come back

to your own house.

All the spells of the others

you have to leave them

even the apple

the old witch gave you.

You’re not going to wake up

to salvation.

You know that by now.

But inside

where the cupboards are filled with the familiar

where loneliness languishes in narrow beds

here

there is something

you can build with.

There isn’t any choice about where you start.

It’s always the beginning

small and limited as it seems.

One rose in a cup,

the mouse that’s been eating the cereal,

laundry muttering in a basket.

After that i can’t say.

The woods are dark,

here is the gate

i have not gone beyond.

Yet here too

i have whispered

i am not afraid

and it is my own amazement

crying me to sleep.