Clockwork Ravens

/ Issue 11.1 /

The heat wave brings euphoria to some:
With no desire to hibernate, the lizard
Poised keen and energized, flashes his scissored
Tongue to assess the climate’s strange perfume.
Two yellow butterflies are being wed
And climb a shaft of sun to celebrate
The sudden opportunity to mate.
The gourd assortment teems with overfed
Fruit flies and sweaty mold, rotting with glee.
I pour a glass of iced verbena tea
Cut from the fragrant sprigs along the wall.
It feels more like midsummer than late fall.

Is this euphoria or a state of shock?
The seasons grow increasingly remote,
And time has long run out for idle talk.
Hear how the ravens read between the lines,
Croaking and chuckling in the dying pines.
Some call them crows, but these are raven birds
With grave vocabularies, cryptical words,
Uncanny acrobatics of the throat.
Curiously, they mimic what they mock:
The long-lost sound of winding up a clock.

Leslie Monsour

Leslie Monsour

Leslie Monsour has published poems, essays, and translations in such journals as Poetry, Measure, The American Arts Quarterly, Able Muse, String Poet, and, most recently, Light, Huntington Frontiers, and The Dark Horse. She is the author of two poetry collections, The Alarming Beauty of the Sky (2006) and The House Sitter (2011). The recipient of an NEA Fellowship and five Pushcart nominations, Monsour is, at present, an independent scholar at the Huntington Library.
Leslie Monsour

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Author: Leslie Monsour

Leslie Monsour has published poems, essays, and translations in such journals as Poetry, Measure, The American Arts Quarterly, Able Muse, String Poet, and, most recently, Light, Huntington Frontiers, and The Dark Horse. She is the author of two poetry collections, The Alarming Beauty of the Sky (2006) and The House Sitter (2011). The recipient of an NEA Fellowship and five Pushcart nominations, Monsour is, at present, an independent scholar at the Huntington Library.