Creek Running North

Raven bursts from the leafless cottonwood,
shrill-barking in alarm, and lifted up
with heavy wingbeat. Writhe, the forest floor
in cold leaf-covered ecstasy, drawn up
in wordless sentences flung at the slopes
there, dotted with saguaros. Raven bursts
from the leafless cottonwood, shrill bark
tossed at the hills. The trees tremble below.
Underneath the soil’s chromatic mantle
they are joined, true-melded at the root.
Clouds cover Alnitak, Mintaka shines
in spasms through cloud edges. This is what
no one will understand, this cloud-star tongue,
though it is written plain for them. Beneath
the leaves the roots entwine. The forest floor
in writhing ecstasy of cottonwoods.
Raven bursts from them. A joining and
conjoining. In the eastern indigo
Orion leers, cloud-clad. These are the words
no one will read, though they are written plain:
a climax forest ecstasy. Raven
bursts out shrill-barking in alarm, his shriek
resounding, joyful joining in the wood.