I Witness A Raven Poem by Caroline Misner

When the moonlight fractures the patterned frost,
in fragments chiseled into the glass,
shattering and refracting its battery
of light, in silent solace through my window,
I witness a raven through eyes
thick and glazed with sleep.
The night hermit probes his feast

of carrion, picking at entrails, a solitary
meal devoured beneath the round moon’s
undaunted glare, refracting the criss-cross
claw marks on the crust.
The boughs and branches
are furred with frost, casting their shadows
upon dunes of snow. He lifts his hollow

wings, a rancid clump of meat in his beak,
and springs upon a limb, scattering
the snow that’s sprinkled there;
the moon wears a ring
of diffused blue, foretelling snow in the morning,
replenishing the chill in the wind.
The stars that cut the blue-black sky sing

like crystals, but are dulled to wet parchment.
The hesitant dawn is inching its hazy throat
toward the horizon, and the raven, a lone witness
to the dying night. The black pearls of his eyes
shine with a cold luster, untouched
by the palls of weather,
toughened by the glint of his harsh feather.