Pelicans came today, flying out of the empty gray sky.  Four of them gliding over me as I looked up.  I let it go today and said it cannot be.  I opened my hands and threw my love up to the sky and thanked him for the gift of our time together.  Four pelicans where they should not be, too far East heading West. Who are you?  Where are you going?  What comes tomorrow?  Where are we flying? This is now and I will trust.

Even in your arms
I was not safe
from your doubt
you beat me with it
over and over again
its coldness
held us prisoner
of another cruel remark
and I was ready
to give you everything.

kaw kaw by the Corby

The owls came to us and I did not know how much they were going to rip me out of my life. Their gold eyes held the colors of the sunset, the colors thrown on you in that truck.  The colors reflected in the blue of your eyes as you looked at me.  We were both ready to change and as I embraced you, I knew I could not return to the way things were ever again.  Now I have left you and the memory of those cold days we found each other in the winter landscape.  I wonder what will happen when the snow comes again?  Will the owls return to make me face myself yet again and die the death they promise?  Or will the fields be empty of them?  I know I will look for them as I will look for you and your white truck.  I will scan the horizon for the falling sun and remember the taste of your mouth.  I will always mourn that life could not make us a pair the way I wanted to be.  Goodbye is the tragedy of time. In a world that marches ever forward I can't manage to stop the pace, I can't manage to go back to that first kiss.  The one that opened me like a door to all the worlds I was missing.  So today is empty of you and tomorrow will be as well.  You may never understand why I had to take care of my own business first, because I didn't then.  I had to close all the doors before I could truly let you in.  I needed to know I was doing this for myself and not for you.  I could never expect you to understand why or wait for me. You have waited long enough, as I have.   Lifetimes, centuries, years, minutes, hours.  We had it once while those gold eyes watched us.  We had something people search for their entire lives and never find.  Maybe there will be owls come winter and they will greet me in the empty fields.  Maybe I will see your white truck sitting on the side of the road watching them too and remembering us.

Rough Legged Hawk

The Hawk

Your wings are like souls

as you float

within the landscape of sky

tipping over the axis of land.

Elemental in your wandering

my heart wishes to follow

the distortion of all things

scaling down.

Dropping cares moment by moment

on my rooted feet I watch.

Gravity

You sweep down then up

tip over the trees

and disappear from view.

By the Corby Hawk 

. 

the Lonely

wind

i am not allowed to long for you

the wind has been endless
raging over and to you
your sentences left falling off
married to married to
your un-seperate self
it is easier to want to hate
not longing howling
shaking trees moving everything
who was i?
blind by tossed ash
the dust of what i had
neglected
pale like breath in comparison
to the gale
when i lost him
i left
your hands held no knowledge
to the songs of his blasts
that shook me
and carried me
until at last
i broke

corby

Bird Left Behind
BY SOPHIE CABOT BLACK

 As for her, the circumstances must be ordinary
And so the return.
Door unlocked. The path mowed
Right to the oiled gate; the pasture

Cleared of stone and alder. All untouched
Enough to enter. The man or woman
Off down the valley or working above

Treeline. No other sound but a few strays
Hurrying through the dusk as if the end
Will begin, certain and with nothing

 More to say. She does not know she does not know.
Having come back to find her kind
And none being left she took herself up
 Into a tree unclear what to do next save only
Sing the song she wanted sung back to her.