Stepping Crow
Stepping crow. Moon at half mast.
Dawn horse, horse, blanket and mule.
The fool knows something you don’t.
Stepping crow. Both feet in the boat.
Books stacked up, and nowhere to store ’em.
Decorum is spontaneous order.
Stepping crow. Gone north of the Border.
Magic in motion and magic at rest.
Only divest, no need to announce it.
Stepping crow. Locked in from the outset.
Feet in the boat and we’re already rowing.
I don’t like thinking, I like already knowing.
Stepping crow. Take hammer to coin.
Anvil to anvil, and figure to ground.
Hateful, the sound of recriminations.
Stepping crow. Uncountable Haitians.
Hospital, barracks; Harvard and prison.
Give the rhythm what it wants. And the people.
Stepping crow. Horace primeval.
Wrist-deep in sheep’s guts, breaking the set.
But memory is the better poet.
Stepping crow. Clogged is the conduit.
Explain and explain, you try and get on with it:
You just give ’em something to fight with.
Stepping crow. Christian Enlightenment.
A bubble, sluggish, in a carpenter’s level.
But bad’s not the Devil. Bad can be good.
Stepping crow. They misunderstood.
Nobody rightly prefers a surprise.
The wise like looking forward.
Stepping crow. Don’t try to ignore it:
The strain in the closet and school letting out.
I doubt it’ll ever be casual.
Stepping crow. I just happen to know.
I don’t happen to trust the self I’m serving.
This pleasure’s a lie, unless it’s permanent.
Stepping crow. And thirteenth tercet.
The place where the Wall tunnels into the sea.
It’s not not me you’re aiming at.
Stepping crow. Gotta add and subtract.
I see now we have no choice but to leave
The brutal honesty to the brutes.
Stepping crow. I know it’s no use.
The Sport of Kings and the Book of Love.
They’re not above irregular perquisites.
Stepping crow. Can never be sure of it.
Blood orange, orange; persimmon and onion;
And women are young men too …
Stepping crow. Oh, say it ain’t so.
A fist full of leaves and another of arrows:
I’m setting the trap where the passage narrows.
Copyright Credit: Anthony Madrid, "Stepping Crow" from Try Never. Copyright © 2017 by Anthony Madrid. Reprinted by permission of Canarium Books.
Source: Try Never (Canarium Books, 2017)