Poems by Richard Green

Ravens at the Rim

by Richard Green

From Canary Summer 2022

We stand on the rim of the Grand Canyon
on a glorious high altitude summer day,
sun-warmed, air-cooled, cumulus clouds passing
through the transparency of the deep blue.

Intoxicating--the clarity, the light,
the high dry air and the scent of pines.
Overwhelming--the vastness, the colors,
the depth, the distant sounds of water and air.
We are in a state of wonder,
experiencing in our modest way
the sublime.

Then unexpectedly, and right in front of us,
a big black shape floats up, almost at arm’s reach--
a raven, wings outspread like a black kite.
We refocus sharply on this bird and feel a new,
more intimate sense of wonder
as another raven floats up, silent, effortlessly,
wings outspread, followed by a third!

I look over the rail and see, far down,
a small flock of ravens assembling,
finding their place in the elevator of air.
The first ravens, high above, are plummeting down
to catch the updraft again.

We watch this spectacle of birds at play,
rising and diving as on a carnival ride,
amused and marveling at their clever abandon.
But I sense something more,
that they are the canyon too, as the rock
and the river, the currents of air
and the steep cliffs are the canyon,
their wildness remote and distant
from us as the chasm itself,
that they are an animate manifestation
of the vast inanimate deep,
the soul of the canyon speaking
in a whisper of ravens.