From Outside the Settlement

but here Death is already chalking the doors with crosses,
and calling the ravens, and the ravens are flying in. 
                        —Anna Akhmatova, translated by Stanley Kunitz 

It’s hard to balance 
the pads of your feet on a railing. 
He hadn’t thought of that 
until just now, 
with the sound of water 
skirting below him. 
He’d thought of his people, 
of belonging, 
the way smiles are like sign posts 
marking the miles home 
but the mileage always reads 
the same, 
marked in zeros 
as big as their eyes. 
And he’d thought of the men 
up north that would soon 
be circling in preparation 
like ravens. 

Just south, his people 
would be setting out dinner now. 
He knew there would be 
potatoes, carrots, 
and venison. 
He knew the children 
would play games 
beneath the table, 
little fingers tracing pictures 

they found in the patterns of the floor. 
There would be words of prayer 
and the low vibrating hum of hymns. 
He knew this. 
He knew that after the evening sermon, 
after parents let go of children 
to hold onto each other 
beneath blankets 
stitched in a history 
of always hoping 
the future might contain 
the light their god had promised them— 
instead of clouds and ash, 
tar, torn flesh, 
and shallow hurried graves— 
there would be dreams 
of fields and sky 
and harvests without retreat. 

He also knew he’d grown too weary, 
knew he held no more space inside himself 
for prophecies or light, 
ghosts or grace, 
gods or the doleful smiles 
of this people. 
He knew 
behind the clouds 
there was no light, 
just the flap and crack 
of wings 
and the ravens flying in.