MAGPIE'S WING

This river carried mountains
to the plains and the sea,
spread a blanket of silt and sand and clay
over the old bones of dead oceans,

gathered the waters from glaciers,
from last winter's snow and yesterday's rain,
gathered the water struck from the springs
we sent flowing into the world.

A crow in a ponderosa floats down
to drink from the slow river. Here
we paused in a flurry of chickadees
where the faster water swirls.

A broken miner's arch reminds me
some bridges should never be built,
some shafts never sunk
into a mountain's dark heart.

Memory can be a precious stone
like snow on a magpie's wing.
Memory can be road kill carrion
in the black well of a raven's eye.

Is this all we will ever have?
Ash and cold coffee, a jet's contrail
dissipating over the broken spines
of the Sangre De Cristo?

Blood thins
until it's pink and watery
and then it's just water
and then it's gone,

down the river just a river
beneath pines swaying like pines,
melting like snowflakes
not long on a magpie's wing.


© 2001 by Richard W. Todd

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