Crow

Thoughts are but teeth on a larger gear,
where angels of stone are thought to draw near.
Now the wheels of the cart have begun to come off,
in the half light of aging as sense disappears.

It is written that we breathe but a short while.
It is written that we make dust into piles.
May I take back the things that I have profaned,
the names and the measures sequestered in files?

I walk in the rain of a blackening evening.
Crow was sentenced to speak without singing
for stealing us rhythm and meter and verse
to touch the sunset to which we are winging.