Page 61 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue2

Elegy for the Cranes

Susan Marsh

Reed grass sloughs, coverts of cottonwood and ash

Buffaloberry embroidering a ditch with threads of crimson fruit:

October spreads its wings, yearning for the sky’s embrace.

Land flattens under cumulus and light,

Blood-­‐red line of sunrise broadens to a ruddy streak.

By noon the wind has turned, strong and from the north.

Primeval music tumbles from the vacant blue

And all at once the sky holds columns of grace,

Dozens of cranes calling as they climb

The invisible staircase of the North Dakota sky.

One, at the far tip of a long vee of birds,

Is white. Its wings ply the air like canvas sails,

Their hems dipped in the blackest ink.

Sunset lingers, empty. The prairie sky was made

For their millions, its silence meant for their cries.

Twilight’s fading violet shrouds loss,

Forgotten pathways of light.

Tomorrow the sunrise will bleed again,

The midday sky will wait

The only way it knows—

Arms open, ardent, filled with light.

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